“Forget the Runner” — PikPok Explains Why ‘Into the Dead’ Has Changed Completely

Duncan Withers, Art Manager for Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days recently spoke to INVEN about Into the Dead, how the franchise has changed up for Our Darkest Days, and how the game plans to develop further during Early Access.

INVEN: My memories of Into the Dead are of a mobile first-person survival runner, so I was quite surprised when I saw Our Darkest Days. It feels completely different from the original games. What made you decide to change direction so drastically? And how did the team react to this genre shift internally?

Duncan Withers: We felt like the world of Into the Dead was large and interesting enough to house a variety of different game experiences, so we were all quite interested to explore that possibility. The team was a part of this exploration phase — a small leadership group spent a few months brainstorming and exploring different genre takes for the IP [intellectual property]. We had everything from text-based life simulators to top-down action shootings. In the end we felt like a side scrolling survival simulator was the right fit for this title.

From the first-person view to a 3rd-person side-scrolling perspective — even though it shares the same IP, this feels like an entirely new game. Were there any major difficulties during development because of that?

Not necessarily difficulties as a result of that change, but it did force us to look at the IP from a slightly different angle. For example, guns play such a prominent role in the first-person games that it took a while to adjust to the fact that we wanted to deemphasise the role of guns in Our Darkest Days, to allow for a more tense stealth experience.

Following up on that, I’m curious why you chose to use the Into the Dead IP in the first place. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a great IP. But compared to the earlier runner games, this feels like a very unusual direction.

At PikPok, we all really believe in the IP and feel it can grow into something greater. The last few years we have been expanding the world of Into the Dead across a few different projects. The heart of the IP has always been the people and their stories, so that’s a point of view that we can apply to many different game genres.

In post-apocalyptic stories, the time period and setting play crucial roles. For example, if it were set in Korea, you probably wouldn’t see many guns. Why did you choose 1980s Texas — and in the middle of a sweltering summer — as the backdrop for this game?

We decided the time and place around ten years ago when we first started building games in this world. The earlier games had a rural setting, and we were really interested in exploring an urban city environment for this title. The heatwave has a grounding in actual Texan history, as the state was suffering from extreme temperatures at that time. However our main motivation for including that aspect was so that there was already a hostile environment in place before the zombie outbreak. We wanted Walton City to already be at a breaking point because of the heat, political protests, and economic pressure. The zombie outbreak was then the match that made the whole thing burst into flames.

What would you say is the core essence of the Into the Dead IP? And how did you try to preserve or reinterpret that essence in Our Darkest Days?

Through all of the games in the franchise, we’ve always tried to keep the focus on the human elements. Our games are at their core about finding and preserving human connections — helping people, reuniting with loved ones, forming families out of the people that are left. One of the most interesting things about apocalyptic fiction is the way it strips everything in society away and forces you to focus on the things that really matter: the people in your life, and the relationships you form with them. We work hard to imbue our games with that feeling.

During Early Access, you revealed a fairly extensive update roadmap. However, it seems not every planned element has been fully implemented yet — for example, while new weapons have been added, there are still no armed NPCs like police or soldiers, nor new behavioral patterns. How do you prioritize what gets updated first?

Those conversations are happening all the time — sometimes on a daily basis. We built a long-term roadmap with the expectation that it will change. We have a good sense about where we want the game to go, but every day we have to adapt to changing circumstances. We’re trying to deliver interesting, meaningful updates on a regular basis to our fans. So that means sometimes features have to change or shift to make sure our updates go out on time. Sometimes we are changing priorities based on the feedback of our users, sometimes it’s as a result of the team experimenting and changing our minds. To speak to your specific example: we’ve been working hard for a number of months to improve the behaviour of our NPCs. Armed NPCs aren’t too far away, so please be patient! 

If we were to express the game’s completeness as a percentage — with 100% being the full release — where would you say the game stands right now?

That’s a difficult one to answer given the large scale of the game. There would be two main vectors to consider I think — features and content. Both teams are working very hard to be ready for our full release. If I had to pick a number I’d say we are around 70%. 

Personally, I find that in zombie fiction, the scariest part isn’t the zombies, but the people. The tension and conflict between survivor groups often create the best drama. Will Our Darkest Days feature any kind of hostile human factions — not just as enemies, but as organized groups with their own motives?

I would agree with that take on zombie fiction. It’s certainly our intention to include enemies factions in some capacity, but in order to do that convincingly we needed to invest time in our NPC behaviours. As I mentioned earlier, we are deep into our development cycle on that aspect and we are seeing pleasing results. If things go as planned I expect we will see enemy factions integrated into the game via future escape Plans.

The “curveball” system has improved storytelling quite a bit, but some players still feel it could go further. After all, in post-apocalyptic settings, the human bonds and relationships are what really matter. How do you plan to further expand or refine these narrative elements moving forward?

We have a few features in development that will grow this area of the game.

Firstly, we are introducing curveballs that require player choice — setting up events where you will be asked to choose from multiple options, each with different consequences to the shelter.

Secondly, there is a whole new relationship system within the shelter, that tracks how each of your survivors feels about the other members of your shelter. The choices you make during your run will affect the stability of your group, and that includes the curveball choices I mentioned above. Not everyone in your shelter will be unified in their point of view. You will have to choose who you will please and who you will upset.

Conflicts among survivors seem like they’ll play a key role as well. This doesn’t appear to be fully implemented yet, but how do you plan to handle things like psychological tension, betrayal, or emotional bonds between characters?

There are two new systems being introduced to the game that will handle these dynamics: the Relationship system and the improved Morale system. The new morale system adds depth to each character’s mental state. The relationship system will provide a framework for evolving relationships — both positive and negative.

Just out of curiosity — what are some of your favorite zombie films or series? If you had to pick one that inspired you the most, what would it be? And by the way, have you seen Train to Busan? (laughs)

I’m a big fan of Train to Busan. It was a shot of adrenaline into the zombie genre at the time and launched a sub-genre of Korean zombie content that continued with All of Us Are Dead (also excellent). When I first watched Train to Busan I was quite struck by the physicality of the zombie transformations. That added an aspect of body-horror into the genre that I really enjoyed. Plus, single-location films are always a great source of tension for any horror film. Outside of Korean cinema, there are obvious influences from the Romero Dead films, and of course The Walking Dead has done a lot to elevate zombie fiction into the public consciousness. One of my hidden gems is Black Summer on Netflix. I loved the way that series presented a single zombie as an almost unstoppable threat. I recommend it.

With its base-building and survival systems, it feels like a multiplayer mode could be really fun. I didn’t see it on the roadmap — but is there any chance we might see multiplayer added after the full release?

I agree that a multiplayer version of the game would be very interesting. However, the multiplayer aspect would have made it exponentially harder for us to develop. We are a relatively small team, and we made a conscious decision at the start of the project to keep it single-player only. So while nothing is impossible, I’d say it’s very unlikely we will see multiplayer added post-release for this title.

A lot of gamers in Korea are really enjoying Our Darkest Days. Could you share a few words for your Korean fans?

As I mentioned earlier, Korea has done a lot to reinvigorate the zombie genre in recent years, so I’m really glad to hear that Korean gamers are enjoying the game. Thank you all so much for playing, and please let us know your thoughts and suggestions to make the game even better. We’ve still got a way to go before final release, so the team is very happy to have you along for the ride.

 

Translated and redistributed with thanks to INVEN.