Swallowing our terror, we dove into the 80’s-themed 2.5D zombie survival horror title Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days, coming to PC in 2024. A new title in the Into the Dead franchise from New Zealand-based game studio PikPok (and its first foray into gaming outside of the mobile or VR spaces), Our Darkest Days puts you in charge of a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic city. You’ll need to scavenge for supplies, hide from horrifying zombies, and manage the physical and mental health of your group in order to make it through.
The build we played began with choosing one of three survivors, each with unique skills. We then ventured into an abandoned house and garden shed, followed by a spooky and gloomy police station. You can sneak around the environment and scavenge for medicine, food, and weapons, making sure to avoid the gaze of any wayward walking dead. Remaining undetected allows you to perform critical sneak attacks to take out zombies with minimal fuss – but if they notice you, combat is fast, frantic, and frightening.
If you’re not careful, you can have an entire swarm of desiccated corpses piling onto you all at once, leading to a swift and brutal demise. At one point in the demo, I had an inventory full of supplies and was ready to venture back to the survivor’s enclave, only to accidentally wake a dozen zombies and get torn apart right at the exit. When one of your survivors dies, that’s it – you’ll need to select another one and try to reclaim all of your items from your former protagonist’s corpse.
As a total wimp, I found Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days to be just the right amount of terrifying. There were only a couple of moments when I needed to let out a little scream, such as when a surprise fast-zombie sprinted at me from off-screen. It seems like it will scratch that survival rogue-like itch, letting you get a bit further along with each trip to a ghoul-infested location. The team at PikPok were excited to be working in the PC space, keen to take advantage of being able to make a larger and richer world than mobile gaming allows for.
Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is coming to PC sometime in 2024. You can wishlist it on Steam to keep track of its updates. Don’t forget to check out the rest of our PAX Aus 2023 coverage, including the similarly spooky darkwebSTREAMER.
About the Author
David McNamara
he/him or they/them
David is a proudly queer performing artist and software developer. He spends most of his downtime with a controller in his hands and a lazy beagle on his lap.
