Its December of 2014, and that means game company's are racing against the clock in attempts to meet 2014 release dates, as the time to push it off and stay in this calendar year is fading away quickly. That's not to say all games that are getting put out now are last minute rushes - some like The Crew had been planned for December for quite a while, and others like Broken Age have been delayed into 2015. Dead State is a game that had no set release date or year, and had been in Early Access for a while, until in November with the release of their 4th major update they announced that it would be released on December 4th.
Dead State is a Survival RPG made by Doublebear productions, kickstarted in 2012 for $332k, who you may know better for their project lead - Brian Mitsoda of Troika and Obsidian Fame, and his wife Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda who has worked for several projects including Neverwinter Nights 2 expansions (Mask of the Betrayer and was Lead on Storms of Zehir), Areanet's GuildWars 2 story writing and works also for Bungie on Destiny. They teamed up with Irontower Studios, another independent developer and use Irontower's in house modified Torque 3D engine for the game.
Dead State is a game set as the Zombie apocalypse is happening - and you are a survivor who has crashlanded in the fictional town of Splendid, Texas. There you meet some locals who have taken up at a local school and are discussing things as you wake up from the injuries. From there you find out about the situation - the government is collapsing, communications are mostly cut off, the local authorities are more or less non-existent, and the fence at the building is broken. Teaming up with the local police officer (Who's never actually had to fight) and one of a couple team members, you head out to a nearby department store on foot to get the tools and parts you need to make it work.
Instead of being an action game like so many zombie games, Dead State takes a more World War Z approach (the book, not the film) of focusing on the collapse of society around you and surviving it with what community you can build. You have to work with the different people there and buoy morale against the on coming storm. Make alliances, recruit others, and make a stand against it all.
You can buy Dead State on Steam currently.
What are your thoughts about a different take on the zombie genre? Do you think its possible to view new ideas that way or is the whole thing totally played out? How do you feel about kickstarted games that you never backed ?