Hi Survivors!

We're back with another update! A lot of your feedback from the last playtest has been poured into this version, and we're happy to announce a new, focused Demo Playtest starting NOW!

This is a big step towards our official Demo release, so your input over the next few days is incredibly important. This playtest will be a short one, running until this upcoming Sunday, May 25th. So jump in, break things (metaphorically!), and tell us everything!

Take a look at our Roadmap [open.codecks.io]and Open Decks[open.codecks.io]. Join our Discord[discord.gg] to discuss ideas and participate in our giveaways. Apart from that, it would be really great if you could take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form (in-game).

Now available for even more survivors around the globe! We've added initial support for:

• French
  
• Spanish
  
• Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Ukrainian
  
• Russian

Additionally, we’ve included an initial translation for Simplified Chinese. Please note: this is currently an machine-translation. A full, handcrafted localization will follow soon, but we wanted to give our Chinese-speaking players a chance to jump in early!

Get ready to put that hard-earned Duct Tape to good use!

Head to your meta base to find the new Workbench, your go-to spot for powerful One-Time Unlocks:
We also added the possibility to unlock rerolls, giving you more control over your runs:
ATTENTION VETERAN PLAYTESTERS: We've streamlined the initial item pool. To get access to the full range of gear you might be used to, be sure to unlock the new Item Packs via the Workbench!

The boss encounter has been completely revamped for a more epic showdown. The boss now features all-new animations, bringing the fight to life like never before.
Prepare to face this monstrous threat at the iconic MKing Burger location, which you might now from Deadly Days 1.

We've dug deep into game balance to refine the challenge and progression:

• The number of enemies and their threat level should now progress more smoothly throughout your runs. Be warned: Normal enemies are now more dangerous!
  
• We've significantly improved how loot, and especially crucial fuel, is distributed across the entire map. No more barren patches (hopefully!).
  
• Early in your character's journey, you'll find fewer high-rarity items. As you level up, your chances of scoring that sweet epic loot will increase.
  
• Several weapons have been rebalanced. Most notably, the Rocket Launcher can now PIERCE enemies AND BOUNCE to new targets! Boom!
  
• We've made sure that lingering on a map for too long becomes significantly more perilous. You'll know when it's time to go.

Beyond the big features, we've focused on making the game run smoother and more reliably. The performance has been improved a bit, the stability increased across the board and a lot of bugs have been fixed.

• Added: More onboarding hints via your character's speech bubble to help new players.
  
• Added: Flavor texts for items! Discover a bit more lore and personality.
  
• Added: A "Zombie Flesh" setting in the options. This can reduce the number of body parts on screen, which may help with visual clutter or performance on some systems.
  
• Improved: Throwable items (like grenades) and powerups are now brighter and have an outline, making them much more visible in the chaos.
  
• Improved: When you place a bag from airdrop rewards, you can now select another reward, and the previously placed bag will be conveniently returned to the selection.
  
• Improved: The inventory is now accessible from the pause menu (Read-Only).
  
• Improved: The framerate setting is now hidden if VSync is active, preventing conflicts.
  
• Improved: Loot spots now have clear range indicators.
  
• Improved: A very slight delay has been added after closing the airdrop screen, giving you a moment to reorient yourself.
  
• Improved: Loading speeds should be noticeably better.
  
• Improved: Item texts regarding how they trigger have been clarified.
  
• Improved: Runner enemies now have a more visible telegraph for their attacks.
  
• Improved: Fewer bullets should now be blocked by small, insignificant destructible objects.
  
• Balancing: Melee weapons with extended range now intelligently clamp their attack to the targeted enemy's distance, ensuring you hit what you're aiming at, not the air behind them!
  
• Balancing: The Spring item has been reworked! It now grants +1 dash for each marked footwear item you have equipped.
  
• Balancing: Runner enemy attack range has been reduced.
  
• Balancing: The Rubber Ball's bouncing projectile now seeks out the nearest enemy instead of a random one.
  
• Balancing + Fix: The "Socks + Rollerblades" combo was... a bit wild. We've addressed this and also nerfed Rollerblades a tad in general. During this, we found and fixed a bug where Socks + Fireshoes weren't working correctly – try them out now!
  
• Balancing: The sky's the limit (theoretically) – there's no longer a hard cap on the Robot Arm's effect.
  
• Balancing: Katana attack rate has been nerfed.
  
• Fixed: The "Finger Length" (loot radius) upgrade wasn't working. It is now!
  
• Fixed: The music volume setting was not being respected during airdrop sequences.
  
• Fixed: Your character will no longer continue dashing if you dash directly into a base POI or an airdrop.
  
• Fixed: Jumper zombies will no longer drop their loot mid-air where you can't reach it.
  
• Fixed: Item rotation could behave erratically on machines with lower-end integrated graphics cards.
  
• Fixed: Airdrops could sometimes create a ring around the player, blocking pathfinding and making you untouchable by enemies.
  
• Fixed: Addressed several controller usability issues.
  
• Fixed: Nailed several crash-inducing bugs!
  
• Naming Consistency: Naming: The stat "Deviation" has been renamed to "Spread" for better clarity.

How does that sound to you? Write it in the comments, play a few rounds and let us know if your expectations were met.

You can also follow us on Instagram[instagram.com], Bluesky[bsky.app] and Twitter[x.com].

And join our Discord[discord.gg] if you want to actively participate in the further development. We are looking forward to it!

Until then, have a nice apocalypse,
your team Pixelsplit

Hello survivors,

today our playtest round #4 is ending. Thank you so much for taking part. We received over 3.000 completed feedback forms and at times had over 400 players at the same time. Almost 100 ideas were added to opendecks by the community and on top of that we received almost 500 ingame submissions. Feel free to take a look[open.codecks.io].


We are very pleased that the gameplay experience was already smooth and stable for the vast majority of you – this is great validation for our work so far. At the same time, we are grateful for the reports of crashes and other issues that some players encountered. This is precisely the purpose of a playtest: to identify these hurdles early on and iron them out, ensuring the demo and the full release offer an even better experience.

Thanks to your help, we were able to deploy a total of five patches and hotfixes during the testing phase. Our primary focus was on improving stability and performance, but we also implemented requested quality-of-life enhancements such as map stats on the loading screen, inventory access at the merchant and an overhaul for the item tooltips.

Find all the changes here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3026450/view/500571481680379919
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3026450/view/563620684686688831
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3026450/view/500569576639038124
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3026450/view/500568942379533794
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3026450/view/500568942379533659
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3026450/view/500568942379532464

• We'll get an overview of the feedback you've sent in, organize it and prioritize the various tasks.
  
• We are preparing the first public demo of Deadly Days: Roadtrip, which will be part of the upcoming Next Fest in June.
  
• We are working on the content for the full version, which should be released this summer.
  
• We are completing the key raffle on our Discord.

We will keep you up to date on our Discord[discord.gg]. Feel free to drop by!

- Your Team Pixelsplit