I’ve always enjoyed State of Decay for its exciting balance between a user-friendly zombie experience like Days Gone or Dead Rising, and the punishing survival sims like DayZ and Project Zomboid. No other series or game I know of has found that unique middle ground—challenging, yet accessible. However, perhaps that claim is no longer valid. While I eagerly await more updates on State of Decay 3 from Undead Labs and Xbox, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is offering me a similar journey with some intriguing variations on the original concept.
Into the Dead will definitely be a title that veteran zombie enthusiasts already recognize. Historically, it has been the name of a prominent auto-runner series on mobile. These games are engaging, but they don’t aim to offer anything more than a gritty, stimulating first-person experience akin to Jetpack Joyride—a fun, albeit simplistic, distraction for commutes or breaks. Our Darkest Days diverges greatly from that and aligns more with what console or PC gamers might expect from a zombie game.
Presented in a 2.5D art style, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days truly feels like a side-scrolling version of State of Decay, and if that series isn’t already challenging enough, it appears that Our Darkest Days also drew inspiration from This War of Mine. I recently experienced a demo of the upcoming game on PC—you can now try a demo yourself—and the remarkable aspect I can share is that I was so captivated that I intentionally stopped playing at a certain point after I could have continued, wanting to save as much of the experience as possible for when the game is officially released and my gameplay progress carries over. However, I observed enough to appreciate that this game is deserving of a deeper look.
Every game begins with you selecting a duo of characters. You might choose a white-haired high school coach and one of his student-athletes searching for his family, an unconventional pair—an animal rights advocate and the rodeo star she once intended to marry—with a much more unexpected child on the way, a therapist and her anger-management client, and more. This definitely sounds reminiscent of State of Decay. It, too, provides you with a few character groups to pick as your starting point, although you select a trio in this case.
The comparison extends further. Similar to Undead Labs’ impressive series, every character possesses statistics—in Our Darkest Days, they gain two passive buffs and a debuff—for you to consider before launching a new game. Just like in State of Decay, permadeath looms as a constant threat, and encountering just one or two zombies can spell disaster for a novice player or a character who may be exhausted, injured, or starved.
To keep your initial characters alive, you must manage your time and their health. For instance, the day-night cycle requires you to assign characters to tasks, and then wait for time to pass for them to complete them. If you have a particularly fatigued character, you should send them to sleep while the others may need to venture into levels that seem somewhat procedurally generated, as loot drops and zombie density tend to vary. It only took me a few nights before all my characters were not at their best. Darrel, the coach, was a terrible cook, but Leo was too fatigued to cook himself, so I decided to have Leo rest while Darrel went on a scavenging run at less than full capacity. That was my first blunder.
In essence, the objective is to explore as much as you can within its horizontal confines and then return home safely. You can spend time filling your inventory to its full capacity, or you might decide to flee the hazardous area once you’ve found that specific healing, cooking, or crafting item you were hoping for. However, whatever you choose to do in the danger zone is far easier said than done, especially when your character might not be operating at their best. Weapons deteriorate quickly, and if you fail to execute a stealth kill, combat can be loud enough to attract any other undead in sight.
You might find other survivors…to your adventures as well, although you no longer necessarily need to assist them. Appreciate the games that distinctly influenced this one; another unfortunate survivor means another mouth to sustain. Each stranded individual turns into a chilling profit assessment. Can you afford the supplies required to aid another member of your community? On the other hand, having an extra set of hands to cook, create, or stab a few squishy zombie skulls will undoubtedly be exactly what you desire as people back home are hanging by a thread due to the circumstances.
In the pre-alpha demo I experienced, it appears that (and explicitly increases the possibility for) survivors find their way back home even if you do not. I know this because, after Darrel encountered a new lost soul named Rahul, he tragically perished before he could return to safety. Although I didn’t know Darrel for long, his death had a lingering effect on me, as those who mourned him, Leo and Rahul, suffered a fear debuff due to their loss. Things were only going to become more challenging in the days to come for my injured stragglers in a land where the dead had taken hold like a gruesome coup of bites and flesh wounds.
My first impression after I initially encountered Our Darkest Days was a wish that it were more extensive, but