Is this game a masterpiece? Certainly not yet, it is still in Early Access. Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is a survival game - but not in the usual 3D perspective, but in pure 2D. What's more, you don't play one character, but a whole group. At least ideally, because your people can die quite quickly and you are alone. The game is set in 1980 in a small town in Texas. A zombie epidemic has broken out and the civil administration has dissolved. At the beginning, we play two survivors who have barricaded themselves in a house. Outside, the zombies are running around with only one thing on their minds - human flesh. We also have a clear goal - to escape from the city. You won't really succeed at first, and the game will be over after a few days. A single zombie is not a problem, you can quickly defeat it with simple means. The problem is the hordes of zombies, because you can no longer fend them off so easily. And unfortunately, most zombie games are teeming with zombies - and Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is no exception. Zombies are everywhere. Your goal is not to kill every zombie. That won't work. Sneak around zombies, avoid them - and survive. Find resources to craft weapons and other useful items, find food to avoid starvation. There are rumors that there is a safe place outside the city for the survivors - will you make it there?

At the beginning, you choose the first two team members - a young couple where she has just become pregnant, or an old basketball coach with one of his (problem) pupils, a father with his daughter, a psychiatrist with a severely disturbed patient... the apocalypse throws the strangest people together. Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is played as a 2D side-scroller. Half the time, however, you don't run from left to right through the screen to progress bit by bit, but you are in your current base and can make decisions there, such as crafting things or sending people on missions to find resources. Or you can let your people sleep. You always control one character directly, but you can switch between different members of your party. Different people have very different abilities - one can do this, the other that. If you have chosen the wrong character, they will not only be significantly worse at fulfilling a certain mission - they will often simply not be able to carry out certain tasks at all.

Your base is attacked every night by the zombies loitering outside. If the barricades are strong enough, the zombies won't get in. This is calculated automatically, you are only shown the strength of the barricade. At some point, however, they will get in - and by this time you should have already moved on. So you move from base to base, where you can only stay for a few days each time. During the course of the game, multiple-choice decisions have to be made again and again, such as whether to accept new people into your group or leave them to their fate alone. These parts of the game are somewhat reminiscent of games such as the dystopian anti-war game This War of Mine. The game is divided into day and night cycles. When you have completed everything you want to do (= assign tasks to your people), you can move on to the next cycle.

While work at the workbench or repairs to the barricades are carried out automatically, or people sent to sleep simply sleep, you take direct control of the character sent out in search of resources. And this is the second essential game mechanic alongside the management part in the base. You can walk, sneak, run, take resources with you (if you have enough space in your backpack), use certain devices standing around, illuminate dark areas with a flashlight, look carefully to see if there are any zombies in the next room and try to sneak past them. Fortunately, the people affected by the plague are quite apathetic and often don't notice you - at least if you don't stay near them for long. As well as various resources, you'll always find other interesting things - new locations, more survivors... or more zombies. If you have a weapon in your hand (knife, scissors, screwdriver, axe, etc.), you can silently eliminate individual zombies from behind. Unfortunately, this often breaks your weapon - at least until you can craft better weapons... If you manage to cross a location from left to right, you can return to your base - hopefully without any serious injuries and with a backpack full of useful items. If zombies discover you, a fight ensues - strike, dodge. As long as you have a weapon, a zombie is hardly a problem. You can also visit locations over several days - first your fighter cleans up the zombies, in the next phase you come with a large backpack and collect all the useful stuff. Some of the locations can serve as your new base - after you have killed all the zombies living there.

Conclusion:
The game is brutal. Hunger, utter exhaustion, depression - and necessities such as food, weapons or medicine are scarce. Your base is surrounded by zombies and your exploration missions are always a game of life and death. Will you be able to escape from the town overrun by zombies? In addition to the management part in the base, the excitement lies mainly in the excursions outside your base. Your advantage lies in your intelligence - which the zombies largely lack. Distract zombies with noises, make them tear down obstacles for you, run away when things get critical. The levels are like puzzles - you don't have to kill the zombies - you just have to escape the city! The game makes a very polished and complete impression despite Early Access, the tension is high throughout - reminded me a little of the first seasons of The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, the frustration factor is also high - namely when the zombies catch you and eat you up! A run is only over when all your characters are dead, but of course there is no resurrection of dead characters in the game... good luck and stay healthy!

This game is very good, its a touch barebones at the moment and i hope the devs manage to dispell the curse of Early Access. The game is beautiful, the basics are really good. The weapons feel weighty however 99% of the time you are going to be stealth killing zombies... or humans.

Now here are some notes and issues none of the issues are damning but its mostly notes to improve on really- Darryl and Leo are the best survivor group at the moment only due to the others relying on both good placement and not working amazingly off of each other, and the creation of melee weapons for cheaper is a godsend. There are a couple glitches with visuals ghosting on characters and zombies when they stand up/turn around, the stealth kill prompt sometimes pops in and out causing you to have to spam E when behind an enemy over and over hoping it kills instead of having the enemy notice you -> (fixable with light tweaking i bet) there are no big bugs that i ran into luckily. As there are no traders in the game yet, money is completely useless which sucks when you realize it 1/2 way through your run and start abandoning cash entirely to be able to bring home useful items instead. A slight thing to change that would be a QoL improvement would be to give the basic cooking bench at the beginning, or make a step below basic cooking bench that they can make slop in the beginning game.

Definitely a great game and has the potential for greatness. Thoroughly enjoyed my time playing the game. It just needs a bit more improvements here and there. There are some glaring problems such as a lack of impact, lack of emotional connection, relationships and many more but I can, in good faith, recommend the game as I trust the devs will deliver in their promises in the Early Access roadmap.