Undying Review

It feels like we are finally coming out of culture’s obsession with zombies. Sparked by the success of The Walking Dead, this craze has lasted for a surprising amount of time given how decayed and rotten many of the media representations are. It’s refreshing to see the subject given a new twist though, and Undying offers a more personal and emotional take on the usual undead apocalypse. Rather than a buff soldier or hardened survivor, you play as Anling, a mother trying to protect her son, Cody, during the initial outbreak of a zombie virus. Right as the game begins Anling is bitten and must try to balance the worsening symptoms of infection with her responsibility to look after and teach Cody. The result is a truly harrowing narrative that speaks to a more human perspective than is common in this genre.

Following a static screen opening cutscene you begin in Anling’s home, with a simple tutorial that teaches you the basics of scavenging and crafting. This sets you up for the main gameplay loop as you explore the various environments by day but must return home for Anling to rest at night. Failing to make it home in time leads to an instant game over as her infection takes over; obviously, this needs to be avoided. The game autosaves every day and you can also manually save, however, so it is more forgiving than some survival titles.

Graphically, Undying is pretty distinctive, with a deliberately drab colour palette only broken by the occasional burst of blue or green in more open spaces. This works perfectly to emphasise the decaying urban environments and the overall depressing atmosphere. This atmosphere is only broken by rare friendly NPCs and moments of interaction between Anling and Cody. As you explore you’ll find books that you can read at home with Cody to help him level up his skills. This touching parental moment really got to me as I related to the horrors of preparing a child for life without you.

All of this suggests that Undying is a real gem and in many ways, it is, but the overall gaming loop got quite old after a few in-game weeks. In part, this was due to me reviewing several crafting games over the past couple of months leaving my resource collection patience a little thin but there is a real grind at the heart of Undying that is paradoxically setting-appropriate but narrative-diluting. The emotional moments helped to alleviate the grind but felt too spread out and I was often unsure whether progressing the story was down to exploration or length of time survived. The sheer amount of resources needed to repair, upgrade, and maintain your house and car was just too overwhelming and I was guilty of trying to push the story forwards too quickly.

As you explore you’ll find out location details for new areas, with both location and distance hints needing to be found before it is unlocked. This does provide some structure but also slows things down a little too much. Earlier versions only needed one piece of information which felt better for game flow but presumably opened things up quicker than the devs wanted. Even when you have the details for a location you need to fix, maintain, and fuel your car to be able to travel to them.

New areas have more resources to loot and new NPCs to offer sidequests. After a period in Early Access, Undying has undergone several significant design changes that have produced a more polished and open campaign but one that is now subject to some degree of randomness that proved frustrating in my attempted playthrough. The most recent update introduces random scavenging points that you can travel to which can definitely help fill the gaps but can screw you over as the travel cost on the car often does more harm than good.

Cody can learn various skills from you as the game progresses and this is a neat addition that shows his growth throughout, though the implementation is a little too gamified in some respects. Each activity is split into skill trees so watching you fill a water bottle and empty a car’s petrol tank are equivalent. This is where the grind sets in, so you need to be particularly strategic with the skills you spend your upgrade points on.

Summary
The narrative in Undying is touching and I really wanted to see it through to the end but the main issue here is a tonal mismatch between the emotional narrative and the traditional grind of a survival/crafting game. If you prepare yourself for slow incremental progress then there is a solid survival sim here, just not quite what I was hoping for given the fascinating setup.
Good
  • Touching storyline
  • Interesting NPC interactions
  • Cody’s growth
Bad
  • Very grind intensive
  • Some unclear objectives
  • First attempt got stuck due to lack of resources
7
Written by
Just your average old gamer with a doctorate in Renaissance literature. I can mostly be found playing RPGs, horror games, and oodles of indie titles. Just don't ask me to play a driving game.