Deadly Days

Deadly Days was reviewed on a PS4

Deadly Days is yet another entry in the zombie genre that treats consumerism as the scourge of humanity and our literal doom. Manage a bunch of survivors as you unlock more weapons and more items to fend off the waves of zombies with. Don’t get too attached to your human survivors though, as they’ll surely die at the hands of the massive hordes of undead that inhabit this pixelated world.

What is Deadly Days?

Deadly Days is a humorous rogue-lite zombie game where your main objective is not only to survive the apocalypse, but also to reverse it using your misfit squad of survivors. It’s an addictive and strategic experience that you’ll easily sink plenty of hours into.

Death Awaits You

Don’t expect to survive for long though, as dying is a natural part of Deadly Days, and you’ll have to start the game from the very beginning more times than you can count. This is to be expected of course in a rogue-lite game. With each try, you’ll unlock more weapons and more powerups for your puny humans, making each subsequent playthrough a bit easier.

Consumerism is evil! During the game’s intro cutscene, you discover the source of the zombie apocalypse, a bunch of burgers made from an infected cow. I’ll think twice before ordering a Big Mac from now on. That’s almost the entirety of the game’s storyline, which is quasi-inexistent. Each of the game’s mission takes place in a procedurally generated map, during which you’ll have to scavenge for supplies. Most of the same missions are similar, with a bit of variety thrown in.

Loot Loot Loot!

You’ll get the option of choosing between three different missions, with each having a certain focus on the type of loot you’ll collect. Will you loot a supermarket for food? Or pillage a warehouse for supplies? Or will you try and rescue a survivor to add them to your roster? The choice is yours, though it doesn’t change much when it comes to the missions themselves.

Almost all of the maps look identical, and it can get a bit repetitive to stare at the same pixelated buildings and streets as you battle the hordes of zombies out to get you. Your survivors usually start with a weak weapon, and you have the option of upgrading them during your playthroughs. You can also level up your humans by spending your hard-earned food, or level them up naturally by having them kick zombie butts.

Fun To Play

The gameplay’s simple, you’ll have to scavenge the map for resources by sending each survivor to loot the buildings, cars, and trees in each mission. The game’s controls also allow you to easily manage them as assigning each survivor to a certain object doesn’t cancel out the move order of other characters. Since most actions are taken by pressing the X button, this allows you to simultaneously send your survivors to each of their respective looting destinations.

Each mission is split into daytime and nighttime; you start in daytime when the zombies are slow and small in numbers. Once the timer runs out, nighttime falls and the zombies become more numerous and vicious. You’ll easily get crowded during nights so it’s best to retreat once that timer hits zero. Your survival is determined by how greedy you get, will you risk getting your survivors killed for some sweet extra scrap? Or just let them run away like cowards with their tails between their legs?

You can also take advantage of a few super abilities and base items during your runs. There’s a wide variety of these to unlock. Base items have a cool down period and can used as much as you want while the super abilities can only be used once during each mission. A favorite ability of mine is the one that removes the cool down period on missile attacks, allowing you to carpet bomb the zombie-infested map to your heart’s desire.

Once your mission is done, you’ll be back at your fortified base, where you can equip your survivors with weapons, level them up using the food you collected and switch up the abilities. With each day passing, your survivors will consume food, requiring you to stay vigilant for any apple trees to loot.

The zombie’s threat level will also increase as more days pass by. Each playthrough will last you about 2-4 hours or so to complete. This may not sound much, but the fact that there’s multiple difficulties to unlock, a wide variety of abilities and weapons, and a daily challenge means there’s plenty of replayability to be had here. Once you start a new playthrough, Deadly Days is hard to walk away from, and I’ve often found myself playing three or four runs in one sitting.

Overall,

Fusing its rogue-lite elements with its cute pixelated graphics, Deadly Days is an entertaining entry in the often-derivative zombie genre. The fact that it manages to put its intriguing twist, while keeping its gameplay as smooth as butter, makes it a must play and a true time sinker.

It does suffer though from a bit of repetitiveness due to its procedurally missions and maps. In addition, the lack of variety of objectives really hold it back from greatness. When all is said and done though, Deadly Days is highly recommended if you’re a fan of rogue-lite games that are challenging, replayable and superbly entertaining.

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Special thanks go to the publishers for providing us with a review code.

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You should play Deadly Days if you

• Enjoy rogue-lite games
• Don’t mind the repetitive missions
• Love a highly replayable game
• Don’t mind the lack of visual variety
• Love killing waves of zombies
• Don’t mind its difficulty

Deadly Days Score

8/10