The setting for Drug War Z is time period agnostic and could be any time from the 1980s through today.
The weapons are generic enough that you don’t have to worry about what type of sub-machine gun a mercenary is carrying, you just have to know it is an SMG. Same holds true for vehicles. A 1980s Toyota pick-up technical or a modern Ford Ranger with mounted machine guns will play exactly the same. And since we are not attempting to realistically portray everything (there are zombies, for crissake!), keeping things a little generic allows you to use the models you want.

The heyday of the drug cartel wars feels, to me, like it was the 1980s. Miami cops in flashy clothes and fast cars getting into shootouts with drug runners and their bosses. You knew who the good guys were (with the exception of the occasional corrupt cop story line) and you knew who the bad guys were. Of course, the war on drugs continues each decade, a little different from the previous. Now we see government-sanctioned contractors going into countries and taking out targets, typically fueled by dark money and shady characters with their own agendas. Throw an out-of-control drug, some nefarious scientists looking to find short cuts, and bodies that won’t go down because they need the drug and you have a formula for mayhem and chaos. Just the way I like a good zombie game.

The zombies in Drug War Z are designed to be “AI-driven” so that each player can control their own force and the zombies can cause havoc with both. But a player is more than welcome to control the zombies instead. It will make them a bit more intelligent, in that the player can cut off escape routes or attack easier targets but they are still just zombies and will still go down with some well placed shots/blows to the head. Don’t debate the logic of zombie actions if a player is running them. Just treat them as any other faction in the game. Finally, the model build section does not have a breakdown by faction. You can make a Rambo-style policia captain as well as a marksman Cartel boss or martial arts-master DEA agent. You will see some suggestions in the Faction section on how you could build your teams, but you can choose to completely ignore it and go your own way. Also, be sure to add some drawbacks. They make the game more interesting and give you more points to make that hero the way you want.