No Escape: Into the Dead - Our Darkest Days

Immerse in an atmospheric and intense zombie adventure.

‣ Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days
From: PikPok
Platforms: PC
Release: 2025
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site

Played with a controller

Sometimes, you kill stealthily. Other times, a baseball bat can deliver miracles.

Humans are the most terrifying monster, by proxy making zombies a menace unlike anything else. The idea of facing an overpowered and nearly unstoppable animated corpse that only knows rabid animalistic violence is terrifying, especially when several of them surround you. Then filmmakers decided they could run, which is so much worse. 

After decades of the zombie craze, a glut of popular media has sucked much of the menace and emotion from this horror genre. But Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days shows there is still a lot of life left in the undead.

Dropping its demo last week, this game was a surprise. Developer PikPok had made a trilogy of Into The Dead games, a series of first-person shooters released for mobile and VR systems. But Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is an entirely new experience: a gorgeous side-scroller destined for PC, consoles, and hopefully Steam Decks.

You manage several characters in Walton, Texas, a town overrun by zombies. Set in 1980, the game world represents this time and space in fine detail, down to the gaudy wallpapers and wooden finishing in suburban homes. While grimy and dilapidated, the various locations are grounded and even colourful, adding spark and unexpected warmth to the detailed environments.

Each playthrough starts inside a barricaded house with a team of two characters with individual strengths and weaknesses. They need resources to eat, rest, and fix barricades, so they spend time between crafting, recreational activities, and scavenging. Gameplay is divided into night and day; during each segment, you assign tasks to characters, balancing their needs with those of the group, which can grow over time as you find more survivors. Your characters do most tasks automatically, but you control them when they scavenge.

Scavenging is where Into The Dead shines the most. You control the assigned character, using a blend of stealth and combat to explore a location filled with the undead. The game is a side-scroller, though with a twist. You can see zombies in the background and foreground. They are not in your character's movement lane but are not decorations either. If you make enough noise, they will respond and come closer.

This dynamic creates tense moments, sneaking past zombies huddled on the floor or assembled in a background side room. Any zombies in the character's lane will attack them, and they can cause noise that will alert nearby zombies. Thus, you must remain careful and quiet while also taking chances, tactically avoiding or dispatching the living dead in your way. 

Most zombie games focus almost exclusively on difficult stealth or over-the-top action. But Into The Dead blends the two styles well. Stealth isn't difficult or unreasonable, and the combat isn't overwhelming or devastating. Characters can dispatch the undead, but they must pick their moments. Sometimes, you have to kill stealthily with a quiet weapon. Other times, a bit of luck and a good baseball bat can deliver miracles.

This versatile gameplay is packaged in a gorgeous, atmospheric game with detailed environments and a stunning lighting system. Into The Dead's visuals already jump out in the screenshots, and in motion, the game doubles down with stunning art, excellent motion-captured animation, and intense sound design. The Unity engine has its share of great-looking games, but this one takes everything to another level.

📽 Demo Snapshot: Survival is about picking your moments

Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days has a fantastic sense of space and time that it uses well. It's also serious about not just being another "zombie" game, adding a sense of drama by designing its zombies to seem less like monsters. There's a sadness about them. You can sense that they used to be human, and you sometimes feel sorry for them.

Until one of them takes an interest in eating you, then it's you versus the undead. Will your characters survive to see another day?

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is due for release in 2025.

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Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:

• 📽 00:58 Intro Cinematic

• 📽 03:08 Choosing a team

• 📽 05:04 The first scavenge

• 📽 10:21 Visiting Value Records

• 📽 14:40 Moving base

• 📽 18:05 Stay in your lane

• 📽 26:18 They CAN look up!

• 📽 33:10 Another survivor!

• 📽 39:38 Good timing

• 📽 45:49 The lighting is amazing

• 📽 58:28 Move to the gas station

• 📽 01:02:20 The Fire Station

• 📽 01:09:54 Second playthrough

• 📽 01:11:44 A sad moment

• 📽 01:17:14 Stealth kill

• 📽 01:29:35 Cooking some food

• 📽 01:33:46 The hardware store

• 📽 01:41:02 Fight for your life!

• 📽 01:46:16 The Church

• 📽 01:50:58 Finding more locations

• 📽 01:51:50 Doh!

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