DoubleBear going for true horror with Dead State

Developer DoubleBear was founded by Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines writer Brian Mitsoda, and is currently working away at Dead State. Perhaps you're new to the game, in which case you should know it's a "zombie RPG" slated for PC and possibly other platforms later.

A new design update from Mitsoda expresses his dissastisfaction toward the current state of zombie-themed games, and depicts how Dead State will be different. He writes:

"In the last decade, the zombie genre has morphed  from a horror genre into a gunchuks and teenage revenge fantasy fulfillment vehicle. The zombies are no longer scary, but moving targets for whatever badass weaponry people hope to get some use out of after gun show buyer’s remorse. There’s this pervasive personal delusion that a crisis situation is going to unleash someone’s inner hero and they’re going to run around the ruins of modern civilization dual-wielding shotguns and yelling “come get some” like it’s an endless game of drunken paintball. The everybody’s stupid/unprepared/panicked/sheeple but me mentality is in full-effect in the modern zombie fan scenario."

So how will his game be any better? An excerpt:

"The figure is still standing there, just out of the light a few feet inside the supermarket. Human or not, your stomach rumbles, and you realize that you need to get in there and eat something or you won’t be able to keep moving. You start walking toward it, hand firmly grasping your stick, driven more by the instinctive need to feed than courage. As you close the distance, it hits you as a spring breeze wafts in your direction – the cloud of rot overtaking your nose and making you gag. The shape moves forward and you can see its feet – burs stuck to its pants and a nail sticking right up through the unlaced sneaker. It makes a loud, painful moan like someone choking on tacks and you freeze right in place. Then you hear more noise, behind the shape, weight being dragged on linoleum, metal being knocked onto the floor. Your eyes adjust as a cloud blocks out the sun for a second. There are a dozen bodies in there wobbling in the darkness - they are all moving toward you."

Dead State will be released "not in 2010."