Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days

peak but stressful

This is a singularly great game. I just finished a very thorough playthrough (and made it out with 10 survivors - not the worst). The attention to detail, the characters, the sound design, and gameplay are all really well done. I just got this a bit ago, so I can't speak to some of the jankiness, but combat made sense to me, and the sound design and level design was a great time. I didn't realize how well the side scrolling genre compliments the zombie apocalypse vibes. This wasn't just another FPS where you run through, kill zombies, scavenge supplies - you really spent a lot of time on every single screen thinking about the best way to achieve your objective, which a lot of times is NOT killing all the zeds or even running away from them constantly. Sneaking around, using height and distance to your advantage, and playing with the environment all favour your survival, and when you are forced to think on your feet, it's really exciting. One of my favourite zombie games I've played, just because I finally got to live the "play an entire group of survivors trying to make it through" zombie fantasy. 8/10 easy, I highly recommend a playthrough.