There is a reason why the zombie genre has persevered over multiple decades. Tense atmospheres, striking imagery, and the building of fear capture an audience like no other piece of media can. Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days from NZ-based developer/publisher, PikPok, presents all these crucial aspects and is a prime example that there is more to be explored in the historic zombie genre.
The early access release date, April 10th (NZ), has just been revealed for Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days at the Future Games Show: Spring Showcase alongside a new trailer. We had a great talk with Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days Art Manager, Duncan Withers, about the upcoming title.
Art Manager: Duncan Withers
Hey there, congrats on the demo being in the top 50 for the latest Steam Next Fest. With over 450k wishlists and being #58 on Steam’s most wishlisted, how is the team doing at this stage in development?
We’re working extremely hard, but also getting really excited at seeing all the work finally come together. It’s been a long road to this point, and we’re all looking forward to finally getting the early access build into the hands of gamers.
Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is the next title in a great selection of games coming from PikPok. What made the team decide to expand on the Into the Dead franchise with this third entry?
We all love working on Into the Dead games, and have always felt that there were more stories to tell in this world. Over the years we’ve created a number of prototypes that explored the IP within different game genres. Shelter survival games are obviously a good fit for a zombie based franchise, so greenlighting this title felt like a natural progression.
For the unfamiliar, what is the elevator pitch for Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days?
A 2.5D sidescrolling shelter survival horror set in Texas, 1980.
Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days provides a tense atmosphere when scavenging environments, with an emphasis on stealth over guns-blazing action. Can you explain the design choice behind this and what goes into creating this atmosphere?
There are a lot of games out there that present zombies as fleshy target practice (we’ve made a few ourselves). That’s simply not the direction we wanted to go with this game. We wanted to create an experience that filled the player with a sense of creeping dread. To fear what was hiding in the shadows and to fully immerse themselves in this survival fantasy we’re building. That’s not an easy task when paired with our choice of camera angle. If we weren’t careful you could end up feeling very detached from your character. So we had to be very deliberate about how we approached building out the game. We talked about restricting information from the player – playing with light and shadow, hiding threats behind closed doors, and simulating a person’s restricted field of view with our line-of-sight system. Our audio is very stripped back and deliberate, with an occlusion system to simulate the travel of sound through buildings. This allows us to empathise with our player character – almost as though we are experiencing the world through their eyes and ears – even though we are very detached from them visually.
When a survivor is killed, they are lost forever. Can you explain trying to find that balance when it comes to gameplay and why you chose to have permanent consequences?
I think that ties back to the previous question about tension. Can tension exist without real consequences? We didn’t think so, so the idea of permadeath was locked in very early in the project’s life. Once you’ve made that important decision, you build the rest of the game around the concept. We talked a lot about what would be considered a ‘fair death’. It’s important to us that players understand why something bad has happened, and most importantly, to know how they can prevent it from happening a second time. Permadeath forces you to learn, and adapt your strategies. We want our players to grow – to become better survivors over time. In order for that to happen, people need to die.
In the demo, we are faced with hard-hitting decisions, such as if we should loot a particularly dangerous room or even inviting a survivor back to camp. What else can players expect?
Players might have to decide how much they value human life. Not just their own, but the lives of the other citizens of Walton City. Is another person’s life worth less than your own, simply because they’re standing in your way? Aren’t they just out there trying to survive, the same as you?
Players come across various leads that unlock plans. Can players see different story elements and locations depending on what they decide?
Absolutely. Each Plan takes you down a different path within the city. Along the way you’ll meet new characters, see new locations and experience different stories. There are even branching paths within individual Plans that make them worth playing multiple times.
The demo’s gameplay is very smooth and the backdrops look stunning. What are some of the team’s favourite locations, and what other areas can we expect?
I’m sure everybody on the team has their favourites. For me, I’ve enjoyed building some of the newer stages in the north of the city. As players move through the wealthier parts of the city, they’ll find some interesting examples of clean, modern (for the time) architecture that both serve as a stark backdrop to the violence found within them, but also as a contrast to some of the older, grittier locations they’ll see in the south of Walton.
Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is the third entry in the franchise. What has the team learned from the previous two games that they are wanting to bring to this entry?
That even though the entire world might be falling apart, the most interesting stories can be told by focusing in on the individuals affected by it. We like to leave the big-picture stuff as a backdrop to the personal struggles of our human characters.
Zombie media is often based in large metropolitan areas. What made the team decide on Texas for the location and the specific 80s period?
So much of the early creative exploration for the title revolved around finding new ideas in a saturated genre. We decided to create Walton City and base our game there, specifically because it wasn’t the type of metropolitan area that people were used to seeing in their zombie media. Texas is a place with a distinct, well-defined identity that we felt confident of recreating. Similarly, the late 1970’s to early 1980’s isn’t a time period that is seen often in games, and we felt it would provide an interesting and distinct visual style to the game.
In your dev blogs, you have mentioned that the zombie genre has endured across generations, but there are aspects that haven’t been fully explored. What kind of aspects are you looking to focus on?
We wanted players to consider zombies in a new light. To explore the idea that maybe they aren’t just snarling monsters – maybe there is humanity left in them. Perhaps the human is still in there somewhere, trapped within their own body – the same way we are trapped in this city. Could we make people feel bad for the zombies, even as we are forced to kill them? If it gives players even a moment’s pause, then we might be offering something different from every other zombie game out there.
Public feedback to the demo has been very positive, and feedback has made the team implement features such as a combat dodge. What other pieces of feedback is the team taking into consideration?
There has been a lot of feedback around characters’ personalities and their relationships with other survivors. Relationships and the conflict that arises from stressful situations is obviously a staple of zombie survival situations in film and television, so it’s not surprising that people want to see elements of that reflected in our game. We’re working on a few features to help elevate that aspect.
We are obligated to ask: what’s your favourite zombie media, and what are the biggest inspirations for Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days?
Personally, I’m very fond of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days/Weeks films. They’re getting some new sequels soon, so I’m interested to see how they compare to the original films. A more niche pick might be the Netflix series Black Summer. That came out around the time we started laying the early foundations for Our Darkest Days. That series really presented a different point of view on zombies – so often portrayed as being dangerous in large hordes, but fairly fragile when alone. Black Summer portrayed every individual zombie as being a deadly, almost unstoppable killing machine and that really struck a chord with me. You can see its influence in the way encounters work in our game.
PikPok is one of the biggest game development studios in New Zealand. Are you able to give your thoughts on our New Zealand game industry and how it has evolved?
The landscape for game developers in New Zealand was very different when I joined PikPok 17 years ago. Back then, PikPok (then known as Sidhe) was the only company that I was aware of. In the time since, the industry has grown so much. There are many studios up and down the country producing great work across a variety of platforms and genres. Many of those companies have been founded by ex-PikPok staff, so it’s been great to see the influence the company has had over the years.
At this stage, Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is slated for Steam. Is there a console or mobile version in mind at some point in development?
We have plans for a console version.
What are the next steps for Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days? Do you have an idea of a timeline for Early Access and hitting 1.0?
Early Access is coming to Steam on 10 April 2025, New Zealand time. We’ll have more to share on full launch soon.
Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is releasing into Early Access on Steam, April 10th. There is a demo available now to experience the title; stay tuned to GamesNight for more on Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days.
