Outbreak: Shades of Horror - Next-Gen Retro Survival Horror
Created by Dead Drop Studios
Survive the opening hours of an undead outbreak alongside a wide cast of survivors in this online co-op retro survival horror nightmare
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Shades of Horror Progress Update - June 2024
5 months ago
– Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 11:45:46 AM
Hello Survivors!
We've been working hard on Outbreak: Shades of Horror ahead of its initial summer 2024 release! Today we wanted post a recap of what we've been up to lately!
New Weapons
Survivors have some new tools to arm themselves with during the apocalypse! The flamethrower overwhelms foes with a massive fireball that deals damage over time. We also have the ever-popular grenade launcher for a good heaping of explosive mayhem. For something a little wackier, slice, dice, AND ignite zombies with the beam katana!
Upgraded Physics Systems
Speaking of explosions, they've never been more deadly! Zombie chunks and gore fly through the sky when caught in a blast.
Tons of objects in environments are now more interactive and destructible than ever. For example, crates and other containers now realistically break apart into dozens of fragments when attacked.
Upgraded Graphics
With our recent upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.4, Shades of Horror has never looked sharper! Incredible new water effects and improved lighting bring Cypress Ridge to life. Our playable Survivors look more fashionable than ever with vastly improved hair and more.
New Civilian AI
With larger maps and larger conflicts in Shades of Horror, the citizens of Cypress Ridge will join the fight! While some NPC's will stand around or try to run away, others will fight alongside you with their own weapons. They'll try their best against the horde, but it's likely they'll struggle compared to our heroes...
Interactive Hub Area
After you boot up Shades of Horror and proceed through a small initial menu, you'll find yourself in the Cypress Ridge Theater! From here, you can select your Survivor, enter any of the game's scenarios, acclimate to the controls with an outdoor shooting range, enjoy mini-games, and much more! This hub area is fully playable in both single-player and co-op play over the network! Stay tuned for more surprises as you immerse yourself in the world of Shades of Horror!
Additional Prologue Episode
As we approach the initial release of Shades of Horror, we've adjusted our roadmap a little bit. We've added an additional Prologue episode entitled Outbreak Shades of Horror: Chromatic Split to the game, and this episode will now be our first release in summer 2024. This special episode features story paths for Lydia and for Hank, and backers will of course receive this extra content at no additional cost. This prologue serves as a bridge between the events of What Lydia Knows and Shades of Horror. As previously announced, the main five episodes of Shades of Horror will all be released by November 2025.
Update on Backer Characters/Storylines
For those of you who have approved their characters already, we will be reaching out to you with a final image for your final approval. If you're in this category, you'll start receiving these as soon as today! Please keep in mind that once you give us your final approval, no additional changes will be able to be made to your character. If you have a more complicated build, we will be reaching out starting next week with individual updates on your characters.
Thank you so much for your patience and understanding. We will share more information as soon as we can, and we look forward to integrating your characters and stories into Shades of Horror! If you haven't yet backed at a level where you can add your own playable Survivor or NPC to Shades of Horror, you can still do so at our BackerKit!
That's about everything we have to recap for today! As a reminder, we typically stream on Twitch on Wednesday nights at 7:15pm ET, and we often show off new builds of our games, including Shades of Horror!
If you haven't joined us yet on Twitch, or if you miss a stream, we also upload our stream VODs to our YouTube channel! We've attached one of our recent streams below timestamped to our Outbreak: Shades of Horror segment as an example. If you'd like to see more as they happen, please consider following us on Twitch!
Stay tuned for more updates soon, Survivors!
Prequel to Shades of Horror -- Outbreak The FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows Is Available NOW!
7 months ago
– Fri, May 03, 2024 at 09:31:48 PM
Hello Survivors! Just a quick note today!
Outbreak The FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows is NOW AVAILABLE on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Epic Games Store! The Xbox Series X|S version of the game will launch on May 17th, with pre-orders opening on May 10th.
This two-game pack serves as a prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror and includes the following:
FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows
In our first file of “The FEDORA Files” three part limited series: What Lydia Knows, play as intrepid detective Lydia Daniels as she tries to discover the mystery behind her partner's disappearance. Search for clues, probe allies and enemies, and solve the mystery of the Jackson Street Sewers in this installment that acts a prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror.
Features:
Narrative rich visual novel with a deep and engrossing storyline.
Multiple paths and endings to unlock where your choices matter.
Meet, befriend, or alienate a wide cast of characters where your relationships matter.
Solve devious puzzles and navigate crazy minigames as you hunt for the truth.
Outbreak RPG
In the aftermath of the Outbreak, play a group of survivors out to rescue their compatriots in Outbreak RPG! A Semi procedurally generated rogue-like RPG, every boot up is a new adventure. Rescued survivors will bring new skills and challenges with them. Can you survive the Outbreak?!
Features:
Semi procedurally generated rogue-like RPG
Lead your party of four survivors through the apocalypse in turn-based combat
Search for supplies to keep yourself armed and healthy
Rescue a wide group of survivors, each of which joins your team with unique upgrades and abilities
Challenging escalating enemy encounters as the city becomes further overrun with the undead
Hilarious and ridiculous dialogue in this non-canon adventure
Enjoy bonus content including:
Scene Studio: Create your own scenarios using simple tools and share them with friends!
Concept Art: Discover endings in What Lydia Knows to unlock an array of concept art!
Music Player: Play the game to unlock music from the whole Outbreak series!
Ep 2 Preview: Once you complete What Lydia Knows, see what the future holds for our heroine!
That's all for now! We're excited that Outbreak The FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows is finally available! We hope you enjoy the first part of this prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror!
Shades of Horror Visual Novel Prequel 'What Lydia Knows' Launches THIS FRIDAY, May 3rd!
7 months ago
– Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 12:25:45 PM
Hello Survivors!
Get ready for a double-dose of adventure this Friday, May 3rd, when Outbreak The FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows launches on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Epic Games Store! Pre-orders are available now for Nintendo Switch. The Xbox Series X|S version of the game will launch on May 17th, with pre-orders opening on May 10th.
This two game pack serves as a prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror and includes the following:
FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows
In our first file of “The FEDORA Files” three part limited series: What Lydia Knows, play as intrepid detective Lydia Daniels as she tries to discover the mystery behind her partner's disappearance. Search for clues, probe allies and enemies, and solve the mystery of the Jackson Street Sewers in this installment that acts a prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror.
Features:
Narrative rich visual novel with a deep and engrossing storyline.
Multiple paths and endings to unlock where your choices matter.
Meet, befriend, or alienate a wide cast of characters where your relationships matter.
Solve devious puzzles and navigate crazy minigames as you hunt for the truth.
Outbreak RPG
In the aftermath of the Outbreak, play a group of survivors out to rescue their compatriots in Outbreak RPG! A Semi procedurally generated rogue-like RPG, every boot up is a new adventure. Rescued survivors will bring new skills and challenges with them. Can you survive the Outbreak?!
Features:
Semi procedurally generated rogue-like RPG
Lead your party of four survivors through the apocalypse in turn-based combat
Search for supplies to keep yourself armed and healthy
Rescue a wide group of survivors, each of which joins your team with unique upgrades and abilities
Challenging escalating enemy encounters as the city becomes further overrun with the undead
Hilarious and ridiculous dialogue in this non-canon adventure
Enjoy bonus content including:
Scene Studio: Create your own scenarios using simple tools and share them with friends!
Concept Art: Discover endings in What Lydia Knows to unlock an array of concept art!
Music Player: Play the game to unlock music from the whole Outbreak series!
Ep 2 Preview: Once you complete What Lydia Knows, see what the future holds for our heroine!
That's all for today, Survivors! We're excited for the launch of Outbreak The FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows, and we hope you enjoy the first part of this prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror!
Shades of Horror Development Roadmap Update! Start Enjoying SoH Content Soon!
8 months ago
– Fri, Mar 29, 2024 at 12:25:23 PM
Hello Survivors!
Today we are excited to share the content roadmap that we promised for Outbreak: Shades of Horror.
As all of you may know, the video game industry is going through a crisis. There have been countless stories of mass layoffs and studio closures. It's a very difficult time to be in the games business, and like many other studios, we are also trying to keep the lights on and keep delivering wonderful games to our community!
You may have noticed that as work on Shades of Horror has progressed, we have also announced a number of other releases and side-projects such as the Epic Games Store versions of our legacy titles, DINOBREAK, Railbreak, and our upcoming three part visual novel, What Lydia Knows. These sorts of releases are absolutely key to our continued existence in an ever-scarier market.
The question we've been asking ourselves is: how do we survive and also deliver on Outbreak: Shades of Horror as promised?
Over the past several months, we have taken a good look at Outbreak: Shades of Horror and made several adjustments so that we are both able to launch a fantastic project for our backers and continue to remain solvent in today's market conditions.
Without further ado, here are the details we'll be sharing today!
The most major change to Outbreak: Shades of Horror is its release format.
The game will now be released episodically. There are a few advantages to this approach that we think you will appreciate, and it will also ensure we deliver the game at the quality threshold our backers and customers deserve. As our first episode release is not the full game, we will be initially launching the game at a lower MSRP than previously announced. All of our supporters who backed to receive a copy of the game on any platform will receive this initial version of the game when it launches on Steam Early Access.
Although the starting price of the game will be lower than originally suggested, we will be giving our backers some pretty cool bonus content! Each episode of Outbreak: Shades of Horror will include one scenario as well as new Operation Rabid Wolf mode contents. In addition, our backers will have access to a side-campaign known as The Trials of Hank, where players get to see what their favorite drunken mercenary is up to during the events of Shades of Horror. This content is a timed exclusive for Kickstarter backers for six months, and once that exclusivity window has passed, non-backers will be able to purchase it as DLC; Kickstarter backers will not pay extra for this content.
After the first episode's release, you can expect to see a new Shades of Horror episode roughly quarterly. With each future episode, a new scenario, a new entry of The Trials of Hank, and new Operation Rabid Wolf content will be added on top of additional features such as new characters, outfits and more.
The price of the game will also increase for non-backers as this new content is released until we reach our final MSRP with our final scenario.
Next, we have some updates on features we promised during our initial Kickstarter campaign.
As of now, we are unable to deliver an orchestrated soundtrack as previously intended. While the game will still feature some absolutely incredible music, we’ve prioritized what we feel will help us reach the vision we promised our backers.
Although Outbreak: Shades of Horror will still feature robust single player and online co-op multiplayer, local split-screen co-op multiplayer is no longer something we will be able to support at this time.
The ability to transform into a zombie as your infection rate increases is the cornerstone around which Shades of Horror is designed and will still be included. In order to accommodate the game’s shift to an episodic launch, we have changed how it will be introduced into the game.
Upon the release of our first episode: when your infection meter reaches 100%, you will receive an automatic game over.
The zombie class that your Survivor will transform into will now be determined by your character's class, and you will now only physically transform once you hit a 100% infection rate. As a result, it is no longer planned for Survivors to gradually mutate into zombies.
In order to give this feature the proper care it needs, it will be something that is developed after the full release of the game.
If you backed at a level where you are creating an NPC, playable Survivor, or storyline, we will be contacting you to determine where your character will show up in the game. Although we don’t have an exact timeframe for you today, we are excited to bring your characters and stories to life in Cypress Ridge!
In regards to physical rewards, Limited Run Games will still be fulfilling physical copies of the game as well as collector's editions, t-shirts, and bundles. These rewards are still slated to be shipped by November 2025!
Speaking of release dates, let's talk specifically about the release timing for Outbreak: Shades of Horror.
The first episode of Outbreak: Shades of Horror will be available via Steam Early Access in Summer 2024. It will include six playable Survivors: Lydia, Miranda, Michiko, Tucker, David, and Jacqueline. We are very excited that you'll be able to play a piece of the game much earlier than expected, and we will of course be listening to your feedback and making adjustments based on your thoughts!
We put together a handy dandy image below so you can see our plan for episode release timing as well as the content that will be included with each!
We expect you all to have a lot of questions about the state and future of Outbreak: Shades of Horror, and we are happy to answer everything that we can! We also showed off a current build of the game on yesterday's Twitch stream, so please take a look at that if you'd like to hear more and also see the game in action!
More updates for Outbreak: Shades of Horror will be coming in the future! Thank you for reading and for your generous support as always. We are still thrilled to bring this next-gen survival horror experience to you, and we can't wait for you to get your hands on the first episode!
Until next time, take care, Survivors!
Shades of Horror Development Roadmap Stream On Twitch TONIGHT @ 7:15PM ET!
8 months ago
– Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 10:00:09 AM
Hello Survivors!
Just a quick note for today!
We invite you to join our Twitch stream TONIGHT, March 28th, at 7:15pm ET for a look at Outbreak: Shades of Horror and its development roadmap!
We'll be taking a dive into the current build of the game, sharing plenty of details, and answering your questions, so please come by if you can! We'll also be giving away games and playing some more Resident Evil 3 later in the stream!
If you're not able to join us tonight, no worries! We'll have the stream VOD uploaded on our YouTube channel once it's over, and tomorrow we'll have a big summary post right here on Kickstarter so you can pore over the details!
