Survivors of a zombie apocalypse are more worried about staying alive than the putrid smell of their blood and sweat stained t-shirt.  After a while you don’t even smell it anymore, it goes away.  The hunger, the anxiety of what could be lurking around the corner, and the memory of lost friends and family, those never go away.

Project DIE is a top down strategy and survival game set in a brutal post-zombie world.  Players spawn with nothing but the shirt on their back with only one simple objective: survive

As many of you know, this project is largely inspired by Dead Island: Epidemic, a competitive MOBA that was shut down and left a dark void in the hearts of thousands of players. Project DIE is going to fill that void, and take it one step further with a single-player storyline and campaign. If our official competitive servers ever go down (perhaps due to a.. apocalyptic event?) players can still play through the campaign or connect with friends through P2P networking.

Here is an early outline of what you will experience in both single player and multiplayer.. development is still young and things can change!

Single Player

1. Minigames
2. Open world
3. Quest-giving NPCs
4. Events & objectives
5. Zombies, lots of them
6. Full storyline & campaign
7. Hardcore mode (stay alive!)
8. Survivor progression via xp & loot

Multiplayer

1. Dedicated servers for competitive games
2. Tactical team-based competitive modes
3. Peer to peer for games with friends
4. Gear you can equip and upgrade
5. Variety of classes and abilities
6. Healthy blend of PvE and PvP
7. Rank & progression system
8. Absolutely NO pay to win

Alpha access

On the right (or bottom, if you’re on mobile) of this page is an email subscription form to opt-in to alpha access. Alpha access will be for a limited number of players to play, test, and help shape the game’s early development. It will be through Steam, if you opt-in you may receive a Steam key in your inbox when the alpha testing phase begins. Currently there is no timeframe for this.

The game plan

There are many challenges that come with developing a competitive multiplayer game. As an indie dev with limited resources, I need to be smart about how this is going to be accomplished. It’s a tall order, even with cloud computing services like AWS. I’ve put a lot of thought into how we can create the perfect game, it’s not going to be easy, but it can be done.

Project DIE will first be developed and released as a single player game. This gives us a chance to flesh out the universe, the items, the characters, the gameplay systems, and most importantly: build a strong community.

Multiplayer will then begin with P2P. P2P will get our networking systems in place and allow us to test, debug, and resolve gameplay networking issues. Our version of P2P will never expose IP addresses, it it entirely through Steam.

When P2P is running smooth and the characters, levels, and items are designed, then full focus can go towards allowing players to compete against each other (and the undead!) on dedicated servers.

Feedback, support, and ideas

If you have ideas, feedback, or are looking to take part in the community join us on Discord.

Conclusion

I plan on publishing a new development blog every month to go into detail about systems and development. I will also be posting screenshots and video clips more regularly to the official Twitter and Discord. Hope to see you there, survivors!