[Georgia, T’bilisi] October 11, 2024 — Shotx Studio, in partnership with independent publishing platform indie.io, is proud to announce that The Dead Await will enter Early Access on Steam on October 24. The Dead Await, formerly known as Death Drive, is a hybrid zombie survival and deck battler game wrapped in a unique, gritty visual aesthetic balancing realism and aesthetics.
The Dead Await first in Survival Mode, which tasks the player with ensuring the safe passage of a caravan of apocalypse survivors, crossing a desolate world pockmarked with ruins of cities, derelict towns, and other remnants of human achievement. The vast map allows players to choose their own route, exploring the devastated expanse, with plenty of challenges, opportunities, and of course, ravenous hordes.
Travel requires keeping an eye on supplies - water, food, fuel - and the team’s sanity. Trauma, injury, and scarce resources leave a lasting impact on each of the survivors. The mundane may prove to be as lethal as an infected bite, if not even more so. Both may pale in the face of other humans: The apocalypse has failed to strip humans of greed, ambition, and vice. Meeting other survivors, entering towns, and dealing with factions will require players to make judgment calls. Who to trust? Who to side with? Who to betray?
The other pillar of gameplay is Combat. The Dead Await is a turn-based deck battler, combined with a robust character system defining each survivor. Attributes, skills, perks - and of course a large catalog of weapons, equipment, and craftable meals prepare your caravan for the inevitable confrontation with zombies. Once you run into the undead wishing to make a meal out of your gray matter (and other organs), the game shifts into battle mode, where success is as much a matter of preparation as playing your cards right: Attacking, defending, discarding when necessary, and taking tactical losses for an overall win.
Shares Shota Bobokhidze, Founder and Lead Developer of Shotx, "The Dead Await is designed to appeal to two distinct types of players: those who enjoy the strategic depth of card battlers, and those who prefer the immersive experience of open-world exploration and RPG mechanics found in classics like Fallout. From the very beginning, we envisioned both gameplay styles to be equally deep and engaging.
“Our goal was to push the boundaries of the card battler genre, which has traditionally been confined to rogue-like mechanics,” he continues. “While it's starting to evolve, it remains largely tied to those conventions. With The Dead Await, we wanted to create something truly unique by blending card-based combat with a rich, open-world experience. We hope this approach inspires other developers to explore new possibilities as well."
Shotx Studio is an independent game developer from T’bilisi, Georgia, founded in 2016. Since its foundation, Shotx has focused on experimental indies, playing with genre conventions, popular mechanics, art styles, and everything else that makes up a game.
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