Developer: Snail Bite
Platform: Microsoft Windows
Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Genres: Indie game, Strategy
Dead Season is Snail Bite’s new turn-based tactics game with a few unique twists on old ideas. Before you get too enthusiastic, keep in mind that “interesting” does not necessarily imply “good”. Having your leg gnawed off by a Rottweiler would not be an uninteresting experience, but it is also not a Dear Diary moment.
You see, Dead Season is an XCOM-like game with zombies, and it’s incredible that it hasn’t been done earlier with the Walking Dead license. You take charge of four survivors: Holly, Matt, Travis, and Paige, and must guide them through a variety of settings filled with the Dead.
Dead Season immediately feels like a game full of ideas. It feels more like a zombie game than a tactical shooter, so it’s much more than just an XCOM clone with a different pallet. However, not all of the ideas are fully realized. For example, the chance-to-hit mechanic reappears, this time in the form of the ability to critically harm a shambler. The zombies are difficult to eliminate because they are already dead. This tracks as a concept. However, it still appears as if you are missing a melee swing on a zombie that is stationary. Had each blow hit and the chance been shown as high or low damage, the result would have been the same, but without the psychological kick in the balls every time one of your moronic characters fails to hit a stationary item with a crowbar.
Ranged damage suffers from a similar mechanic, which makes more sense given that, except from Holly, you are not skilled marksmen. Holly is a cop, therefore she should miss far less than the others. In any case, Dead Season compensates for your possible competence by increasing the likelihood of each gun jamming around one-quarter of the time. It still costs Action Points, and repairing it demands an additional Action Point. This is what the Ancient Ones called “absolute bullshit”.
What it does is heighten the sensation of desperation. Because your survivors aren’t hardy, you’ll need to scavenge goods to boost their survivability and level up their innate skills, such as lowering the likelihood of a gun jam or allowing them to carry leftover action points. They all have the same, pretty narrow skill tree, thus there isn’t much variety.
To give the impression that the tale continues between missions, Dead Season will randomly take items from your inventory during the journey. So boldly leaving one task with a shotgun and an AK47 is frequently punished for no apparent reason. Again, it heightens the sensation of desperation, and I see why they do it, but it undermines your sense of progress. Every mission, you’ll need to collect new weapons and toolkits to barricade doors and defend against the hordes. Of course, special zombies arise, such as hazmat zombies who leave poisoned clouds in their wake and cloaked runners who resemble Left 4 Dead’s hunters.
There is also noise to consider. Whatever you do, additional zombies will climb from sewers or stagger out of doorways; nevertheless, the more noise you create, the more zombies will appear. They’ll also become furious, moving faster and attacking more precisely. Using firearms is the primary source of noise, however most missions will devise ways to generate a racket and raise the stakes in the latter third. For example, a zombie will fall from a roof onto a parked car, activating the alarm, or you will break into a store for supplies, triggering lights and sirens. Every operation becomes an attrition struggle as you try to proceed slowly, taking out anything you can with whatever you have. On normal difficulties, it feels nearly unfair because your squishy survivors can’t take much damage before dying.
If you lose one, you fail the mission. This happened to me precisely at the end of a task that had taken me over half an hour, and I discovered that there is no autosave. You can save and load at any time, but the game will not do it for you. If you neglect to save and die, you must restart from the beginning. That one was difficult to recover from.
I loved my time with Dead Season to some extent, but it is not an experience I would like to repeat. The lack of true customisation or diversity, as well as how it manages task advancement, let it down for me. The characters are adequate, and the plot, conveyed primarily through silent still photos and the rare bit of voice acting, is about as basic as a zombie movie can get.
Dead Season is a decent game for fans of the turn-based genre who enjoy feeling hopeless. Adding zombies to the formula doesn’t offer much to freshen up the genre, but there are some interesting ideas at work, even if the execution is shaky at points. Still, if you want a challenge and can’t get enough of the shambling dead, it’s well worth a look.
Review Overview
Gameplay: 82%
Controls: 80%
Aesthetics: 85%
Content: 83%
Accessibility: 78%
Value: 81%
Overall: 82%
A TENSE SURVIVAL EXPERIENCE!
Summary:
“Dead Season” is a terrifying survival game set in a bleak, hostile world where every decision could mean life or death. The gameplay combines resource management, exploration, and stressful confrontations, resulting in an environment that keeps players on edge. Controls are relatively responsive, yet some operations may feel difficult under pressure. The aesthetic design is hauntingly effective, with gritty graphics and a moody soundtrack that heightens the feeling of isolation. With a compelling storyline and enough content to keep players coming back, “Dead Season” is an excellent pick for survival horror lovers looking for a scary, immersive experience.