HUGE Kickstarter Update! Shades of Horror Initial Release OCTOBER 24TH, Physical Rewards Info, and MORE!
6 months ago
– Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 10:30:13 AM
Hey Survivors!
We are excited to announce the official roadmap for Outbreak: Shades of Horror’s initial release and beyond!
Getting to this moment has been nearly five years in the making, and we are excited to give our loyal Survivors a first look at Cypress Ridge. We are kicking things off through the release of a Steam Early Access version of SoH. We consider this version a sneak peak - or a jump scare - of what’s to come.
Players will be able to access gameplay from our base of operations: Cypress Reel. Once the town’s movie theater, Cypress Reel is now a bustling headquarters for our scrappy Survivors.
At Cypress Reel, players will be able to switch between available Survivors, get acclimated to the game’s controls and weapons, redeem and customize clothing and cosmetics, and access the core modes SoH has to offer. During the sneak peek, two of our main modes, Raid and Invasion, will be fully playable both offline in single-player and online in co-op over the network.
Raid Mode: Save civilians and make it to the extraction point in this action-packed gauntlet. Defeat enemies to find important weapons, ammo, and items, but don’t take too long; as you spend more time in one of many maps, enemies become stronger and deadlier.
Invasion Mode: The undead are closing in on your position, and you need to defend the innocent denizens of Cypress Ridge! Fortify your defenses with buildable traps, turrets, and stations before hordes of zombies come to ruin your day. Make sure you protect your Furos generators too, or else you’ll find yourself without the resources to stay alive as the action ramps up. Enjoy unique modifiers that keep the experience fresh every round!
In between matches, stroll into the Cypress Reel Arcade to enjoy a host of frenetic mini-games! Can you survive the Boss Rush gauntlet? Will you be able to skip a creepy rural town in Looming Dread? Test your reflexes as you escape a flooding subway tunnel in Collapse! While short and sweet, these mini-games will put your skills through drills! Plus – with adjustable difficulties, there’s always new challenges to face.
Ten Survivors will be playable in the Sneak Peek. When playing as any character in any mode, your progress levels up that character and also helps complete challenges. You’ll earn XP, Ferret Tickets, new items and weapons, and other surprises as you play more and more!
While there are lots of free customizations to earn, Survivors also have a chance to earn Ferret Tickets. With these, you can shop at Ferret’s Emporium, the only remaining post-apocalyptic retailer in Cypress Ridge. Shirts, glasses, hats, weapon skins, and even whole outfits – you name it, Ferret’s Emporium has it all! Redeem Ferret Tickets at Cypress Reel’s many gacha machines to earn and freely use all of them to customize each of your Survivors as you see fit.
Cypress Reel will evolve alongside Shades of Horror as it grows and expands. You can look forward to seasonal and game-crossover events. At the launch of SoH’s sneak peek, our first season will be Halloween, and our first DDS game-crossover will be with DINOBREAK. You’ll be able to not only enjoy fun decorations in the theater, but also special challenges to complete, some with unique rewards.
But wait; there’s more! At the sneak peak’s launch, all players will have access to both the online multiplayer and the single-player, offline versions of SoH: Chromatic Split and Trials of Hank.
SoH: Chromatic Split: Enjoy the classic, three act prequel to the main game, now enhanced with new weapons, items, and mechanics. Can Lydia get essential information from her contact in the Cypress Ridge underground before it’s too late?
Trials of Hank: While Lydia is traversing the underground in Chromatic Split, fan-favorite Hank hits the rooftops in this over-the-top side campaign where the answers to all of life’s problems are lead, explosions, and more lead! Will Hank complete his mission, or will the monsters that haunt the Cypress Ridge skyline be too much for him to handle?
In our coming soon section: our Story Mode. We need a bit more time before we’re ready to let you access our most ambitious campaign and narrative yet, and we’ll have more details about it when it’s closer to release. For those of you who pledged at a level where you’re an Alpha or Beta tester, we’re planning on making early versions of Story Mode available to gather your feedback. Please excuse our blood and dust, and thank you for your patience!
With our digital timelines decided, we have also been pounding the pavement to try to get you a better idea of when you’ll receive your physical rewards. After a lot of internal back-and-forth here what we came up with:
As of right now, our timeline for physical reward distribution is now tied to the launch of Outbreak: Shades of Horror’s physical PlayStation 5 release. As many of you know, we are a pretty small organization, and juggling development time and costs alongside delivering physical rewards has been an even greater challenge than we anticipated. Considering current global economic factors such as tariffs on top of the state of the video game industry and our business has fueled this decision. We appreciate your continued support and understanding, and we hope you will enjoy the fruits of our labor soon!
This is just the beginning of our roll-out for Outbreak: Shades of Horror. In the future, the game will be available on Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 as previously announced. We do not yet have a timeframe for the console versions’ release, but you can expect to hear more details in the future.
All backers who supported Outbreak: Shades of Horror at a level where they’re at least receiving the full digital game will be given a Steam key for this Early Access version, including those who backed the title specifically for Xbox Series and PlayStation 5. We are aware that not all of our players prefer to play the game on PC, but we would like to give even those who didn’t pledge for a PC/Steam version a chance to try it at this stage. You can even use your Xbox Series or DualSense controller to play it, as the game features full gamepad support on PC!
The Early Access version of Outbreak: Shades of Horror will launch for PC via Steam on October 24th. In the interest of continuing to make Outbreak: Shades of Horror the best game it can be, the Early Access version will also be available for purchase to non-backers on October 24th at a price-point of $29.99 USD. On top of the previously promised exclusive cosmetics that will be available to those who backed the Digital Collector’s Edition of the game, we will also be releasing a separate, special, Backer-only cosmetics bundle for those who qualify to receive the Early Access version of Outbreak: Shades of Horror. These cosmetics are a token of our gratitude to those of you who supported us at the outset of this project, and without whom we would not have a game at all. The contents of this cosmetics bundle and its release timing are currently TBD. Thank you all so very much.
Please stay tuned for more updates regarding Outbreak: Shades of Horror and its development. We hope you’re excited to try the game starting on October 24th!
See you out there, Survivors!
