While We Wait For State Of Decay This Punishing New Zombie Game Is Hitting All The Right Notes

I've long appreciated State of Decay as the exciting middle ground between an approachable zombie game like Days Gone or Dead Rising, and unforgiving survival sims like DayZ and Project Zomboid. No series or game that I know of has found that same middle ground--harsh, but digestible. But maybe that's no longer true. While I impatiently await more news for State of Decay 3 from Undead Labs and Xbox, Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is giving me a similar experience with some welcome twists on the formula.

Into The Dead might be a name-brand undead devotees already know. Previous to now, it's been the name of a first-person auto-runner series on mobile. They're neat games, but they really aren't trying to do too much other than being a gritty, scary, first-person take on something like a Jetpack Joyride--a fun, albeit one-note, time-filler for bus rides or lunch breaks. Our Darkest Days is far from that and more in line with what a console or PC player might expect of a zombie game.

Presented in a 2.5D art style, Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is essentially a side-scrolling State of Decay, and if that series isn't already unforgiving enough, it seems like Our Darkest Days also looked to This War of Mine for inspiration. I recently checked out a demo for the upcoming game on PC--a demo you can now play yourself, by the way--and the best thing I can say about it is that I was so impressed that I actually stopped playing at a point when I could've gone further, because I want to preserve as much of the experience as I can for when the game is out and my save data will carry over. But I saw enough to know this game is worth that deeper look.