Developer: Sandswept Studios
Publisher: Sandswept Studios
Platform: PC (Steam)

If there’s one trend that has been seeing major success over the last few years it is wedging zombies into every game humanly possible. From adding zombies into a special mode of Call of Duty to having zombies fight against gardens in Plants vs. Zombies, we’ve seen them become quite the stale enemy type. With upcoming games such as The Dead Linger though it is obvious that some companies want to make zombies back into the fearful creatures they used to be known as.

The Dead Linger is a game that is currently in alpha and available through Steam Early Access. It has been in progress for months now but just came to Steam in late September after a huge shift to the Unity engine. Because of this, it appears that updates to gameplay have been relatively minimal but are about to pick up speed again. Thus far, they have stuck to their commitment of bringing out new updates every two weeks. This preview is based on Build 10 (hotfix 10g).

Despite all these updates and fixes, there is still tons lacking from the game. Considering this is not even a beta yet it does make sense, but will likely turn off those who aren’t aware of what the term “alpha” really means. This is already evidenced by some comments on the Steam Community forums. Of course, the game is currently being sold at a higher than usual price of $20 makes some of their anger understandable.

How does The Dead Linger play if you were to buy it right now? As it stands, there is a ton of work that obviously still needs to be done. You are thrust into a large map in either single or multiplayer and then must go around scavenging for food and weapons, finding suitable buildings to hunker down in, and possibly interacting with other players. With that said, none of these mechanics are fully fleshed out yet. You can find food and eat it, but weapons are a whole different story. Whether you’re equipped with a plunger or rifle in multiplayer you won’t be able to damage zombies! They just stand there (sometimes gliding around with no leg movement) and gnash their teeth at you.

This is a really unfortunate issue because they do fight in single player. But with them completely harmless in multiplayer there is currently no reason to even play that mode. When checking out a server myself, I saw people just standing around or sometimes chatting. There just isn’t any reason to scavenge to survive when there’s no threat! Once the zombies are reanimated in a future update then they’ll have a much more presentable game project.

Although the game doesn’t look fantastic currently there are various players who have complained about framerate issues. It seems the best fix at the moment is turning down/off grass but this is likely a silly issue in development that can be resolved. After all, in the case that zombies do end up chasing you, the last thing anyone wants to deal with is a game suddenly running slow. As for the overall experience, there are many times the game crashed or caused other odd issues. This is expected of an alpha product and will hopefully be smoothed out through the beta.

So far, Sandswept Studios have shown that they have many great goals for The Dead Linger. This is apparent by checking out their development roadmap. It is absolutely filled with neat-sounding (but currently un-implemented) features. They want their zombie simulation to be as realistic as possible which is why they are currently working on various systems related to character stamina, health, infection level, and hunger. Of course, many gameplay improvements are also in the works related to functionality of various gun or melee types as well as interactive vehicles.

Jumping into The Dead Linger in its current state is not suggested for the average gamer. After all, you are not paying for a fully released product but something still working itself into a playable form. The main reason to buy now is to support independent developers such as Sandswept Studios. That, and, buying now is $10 cheaper than buying once the final version is ready. There’s no guarantee with purchase that the game will ever be exactly what you want it to be, but the developers definitely have some great ideas in mind. We’ll have to wait and see if they can live up to their own goals.