Deadly Days [Xbox]
Developed by Pixelsplit and published by Assemble Entertainment, Deadly Days is a challenging, strategic roguelite in which a factory producing contaminated burgers has caused the zombie apocalypse - and it’s up to you to find the source and stop their production line to prevent further zombies being created. You’ll send survivors out each day to forage for supplies such as food and scrap, as well as to rescue additional survivors to make it through to another day. There are four map pieces to be found, by destroying burger joints, that will lead you to the Final Mission: the Burger Factory.
Survivors each have their own skills and abilities, and you can equip them with different weapons and level them up individually. For each new run, you’ll get to choose a particular Specialization, which gives you a starting item and starting power. You can choose from Warfare, Scavenge or Research as well as a fourth option that will be unlocked after your first winning run. There’s a very limited amount of time in each day to complete all objectives during a mission, which is super frustrating. The objectives are listed as optional, to be fair, but with such a short amount of daylight to get stuff done before the zombies become even more of a threat means that you’ll often find yourself getting in and out as quick as you can - ignoring many of the objectives in order to survive (but forgoing much of that sweet, sweet loot in the process). Trying to guide each of your survivors to different areas of the map can sometimes be a bit hit or miss, with them often wandering off in the wrong direction, or not looting the building you’re furiously tapping on.
When each mission begins, the map will be almost entirely blacked out - with visibility being restored as you move across the map. This can make things pretty vexing, particularly on the larger maps, as you struggle to beat the timer and find everything before it turns to night - and the challenge rises. On occasion, you’ll get the option of a mission with the bonus ‘A Clear View’ which has the map fully revealed when you begin, and these ones are far more enjoyable to play, since you’re not aimlessly backtracking every time you end up going down a blacked-out dead end. The different Mission types available will give you different loot - with each Mission stating the map size, amount of loot, and potential danger - so it’s crucial to mix up which ones you select to gain an ample supply of food, weapons and scrap - as well as allowing you to reduce the threat level at times. Learning what each mission type will offer is a bit of a process, as the mission cards don’t provide much info in the way of this - so when you’re starting out you can feel more than a little overwhelmed.
As with many roguelites, you can feel when you’re on a good run. Certain Base Items and Special Powers really make a difference, with one of our favourites being the Rat Trap, which when fully upgraded, spawns two rats for every zombie you kill, making massive zombie hordes that little bit easier to deal with. Every few in-game days, the difficulty increases, with zombies growing more and more aggressive. Ensuring that you’ve got decent team members, with good weapons and upgraded Special Powers and Base Items will give you the best possible chance at survival. You can also upgrade your base to add on extra rooms with particular purposes, such as a Planning Room that will level up all of your survivors at the end of each mission, providing you’ve completed all Objectives. This was a big help as it allowed survivors to upgrade without wasting food, and made them far more powerful over time.
It’s got a pleasing pixel-art style, with a good level of detail and a wide variety of survivors to unlock (ranging from a banana man, to a Snowman and Casanova) and zombie designs across the normal zombies, and bosses being decently varied too. The soundtrack is very jolly at times, which almost goes against the gameplay, but in quite a humorous way - plus, it’s fun to listen to as you mow down the zombies, as it gets more intense as time goes on.
There’s an Encyclopaedia for you to look over everything you’ve come across or unlocked during your runs, such as Weapons, Base Items, Special Powers, Survivors, Zombies, and Achievements. There’s also a Daily Challenge mode if you’re looking for something to keep you coming back for more after you’ve unlocked everything, and this has a leaderboard to see how you stack up against others - although it appears that not many people continue to play this mode each day.
If you like the sound of Deadly Days, you can get it on the Xbox Store for £15.74, but if you’re still a bit uncertain on it, then thankfully there is a Demo available to download and let you get a feel for if the game is something you’ll get along with. Overall, Deadly Days is a decent roguelite, but does have a fair few flaws that could be improved. If you like strategic roguelites, especially ones that will provide a good challenge, then Deadly Days might be worth a shot.
In the end, we decided to give Deadly Days the Collecting Asylum rating of 7.5/10.
Have you played Deadly Days yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Assemble Entertainment for the Deadly Days Xbox review code!
