Undying

Undying presents a tragic tale of a mother whose hope of survival is low during a zombie apocalypse. It’s an emotional journey of a mother and her son that drives you to stay and find out what happens next. Starting out is rough and combat can be difficult since it’s easy to screw up. But the survival fundamentals are strong and it’s nice to see your actions impact the world around you.

The irony of Undying exists in its very title and premise. As a whole, the zombie genre has seen its birth, death and rebirth in an almost phoenix-like cycle as media continues to stagger forward. In my lifetime, I’ve bore witness to The Walking Dead, Left 4 Dead, and the madness of One Cut of the Dead. In that same vein, I’ve also watched crafting and survival games plumb the depths of human patience as we get another and another title promising to be something unique, while still asking...

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.

It's not a New Year if we're not talking about death and despair. Those are just the feelings this time of the year brings out in ordinary people like me, mainly when the Christmas songs have been playing, and we all undertake the annual tradition of Whamageddon and the drinking of alcohol in pyjamas—that or grumbling about large explosions in the background annoying our cats or interrupting our films. In keeping with this positive outlook, I've been playing a game called UNDYING, and as the name implies, there's a bit of the not-dying in there.