After a rampant viral outbreak causes global society to collapse, you must survive the harsh wilderness of the Canadian Rockies amidst vast hordes of Infected and rival survivors.
Recent Reviews:
Mixed (26) - 69% of the 26 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.
All Reviews:
Mostly Negative (204) - 28% of the 204 user reviews for this game are positive.
Release Date:
Sep 15, 2023
Developer:
Publisher:

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

WARNING: Dead Matter will contain bugs and other unpolished features that can drastically alter your experience while in Early Access. Please take this into account when you are buying the game. Otherwise, we strongly suggest you pick up a copy later if you are seeking a more refined experience.

Launching Dead Matter in Early Access is a crucial step in our development process. While we have achieved what we feel is the very bare minimum for a zombie survival game of this scope and scale, we believe that the journey towards creating a truly immersive and realistic zombie survival game is a collaborative process between us, the developers, and you, the players.

Entering Early Access allows us to share our vision with a wider audience and gather feedback that is essential for fine-tuning the game mechanics, fixing bugs, and shaping the future development of Dead Matter. It provides us with the opportunity to test the game in real-world scenarios, with a diverse range of players, hardware configurations, and play styles.

Our goal is to create a zombie survival game that strikes the perfect balance between immersive gameplay and realistic mechanics, while maintaining the delicate balance of simulator vs game. By entering Early Access, we are committing to an ongoing process of iteration, feedback, and improvement, to ensure that Dead Matter evolves into the best possible version of itself.

Your support and feedback during this phase will be invaluable in helping us to identify and prioritize the most important features, fixes, and improvements. Together, we can create a zombie survival game that sets a new standard for the genre.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We’re planning to keep Dead Matter in Early Access for 36 months. This timeline is not a deadline, but rather a rough estimate based on our current development pace and the scope of the features we plan to implement. As developers, we are incredibly proud of the progress we have made so far, but as players ourselves, we understand the immense amount of work required to build a game of this magnitude and complexity.

Our team is extremely small, and while this allows us to maintain a tight-knit and focused development environment, it also means that progress can sometimes be slower than we would like. We are committed to taking the time necessary to develop Dead Matter to its fullest potential, without compromising on quality or rushing to meet arbitrary deadlines.

During the Early Access period, we will be releasing regular updates to improve the game, add new features, and respond to feedback from the community. Our goal is to use this time to refine and expand Dead Matter based on your feedback and our own internal testing.

We believe that this approach will result in a more polished and enjoyable final product, and we are grateful for your support and understanding as we embark on this journey together.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“We aim to achieve the following feature-set by the time we exit Early Access, in additional to providing a full release version that is free from bugs, graphical glitches and performance issues.

  • Completed 15km x 15km map with various regions and locations for players to explore in.
  • Modding and Steam Workshop support.
  • Polished experience with all Early Access features working correctly, without bugs, hitching, performance issues, etc.
  • Large scale multiplayer support aiming to support 128 players.
  • Fully fleshed out zombie behavior, and optimizations to allow servers to always simulate some sort of data for every single agent across the world map.
  • Additional crafting recipes
  • Additional jobs and storylines for the player to experience.
  • Random encounters system, breaking up the monotony of exploring a large world.
  • Editable appearance in Character Creation, including the ability to edit facial features, hair color and eye color.

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Our current version of the game is rough, but you will be able to get a taste for what Dead Matter aims to bring to the table.

  • 6km x 6km slice of our world map.
  • Basic 4 wheeled vehicles such as cars and trucks.
  • In-Depth Medical System
  • 2d grid based inventory with containers, pouches, and a unique way to equip items.
  • Fight against hundreds of zombies at a time.
  • Claim various buildings throughout the map to barricade and defend.
  • Tents can be placed in world and used for storage.
  • Craft various items utilizing our crafting system.
  • Character Creation that allows you to select your former occupation along with some perks, detailing your characters life before the world slowly slipped into madness!

There are many bugs and issues that you're likely to encounter, and some systems such as the vehicles and base claiming / building.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“The Early Access version of Dead Matter will be at a lower price point to reflect its current state. We will be incrementing the price of the game periodically and participating in minimal sales throughout Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We are going to be providing access to our nightly development branch and engage with our community directly on our forums, the Steam forums and our Discord server.

Feedback from the community is extremely valuable to us and we would not be able to launch Dead Matter into Early Access in any shape or form without the feedback loop of nightly builds and direct community engagement.

Ultimately, we believe that no developer has yet built the ultimate first-person zombie survival game, and that has lead to a coherent yet fragmented vision that is held by people passionate about the zombie survival genre. We aim to collect feedback, curate it and innovate using the information provided to us.”
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About This Game

When the dead roam the earth...


The year is 2025. A mysterious virus, which turns its victims into ravenous inhuman husks, plunges the world into total chaos.

Several weeks have passed since the infected have overrun the province of Alberta. Canadian federal agency NERA's evacuation attempts failed, leaving you and countless other survivors trapped in the Kananaskis area, now overrun with tens of thousands of infected pouring over from the cities.

Your supplies are running low, and you’re not the only one starving and desperate.

Who will you be, now that nothing is left?

What is Dead Matter?


Dead Matter is an open-world, multiplayer zombie survival game project in Early Access.

We are a small but passionate team that believes in working closely with our community to refine and improve our game. As part of this collaborative approach, we offer access to a Nightly testing branch where all of Dead Matter's latest changes and newest content can be experienced before stable patches roll out.

Patches and updates developed through feedback from the Nightly testing branch are integrated into Dead Matter's Release branch. This process ensures that Dead Matter will continue to evolve with our community's direct input.

CURRENT FEATURES







The world of Dead Matter takes place in the province of Alberta. You will explore the rolling plains of the Kananaskis valley, nestled in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. As our map continues to expand, the valley will have a diverse number of natural wonders for you to discover, as well as the towns of Canmore and Banff.






Running into the Infected can be a death sentence. Although by themselves they may not pose much of a threat, their strength comes in numbers, and you will easily find yourself overwhelmed if you’re not careful.



Fire your gun at your own risk: loud noises will draw the attention of the ever-present horde. Melee weapons will leave you completely outnumbered if you plan to take on more than a few infected. Plan accordingly.



The Infected aren’t the only threats you’ll have to contend with, though. You will have to manage your supplies to keep fed and hydrated, heal yourself when injured, and disinfect your wounds.






In the wake of total societal collapse, you will have to rely on your own resourcefulness. Craft bandages in the field with scraps of cotton, or improve a baseball bat by studding it with leftover nails.






The residents of the survivor settlement Dominion will offer you dangerous mercenary work in exchange for monetary reward or valuable gear. As the quest system expands and improves during Early Access, you may even be able to take part in their stories, should you gain their trust.

PLANNED FEATURES

  • Season Cycle with harsher weather conditions, including an expanded temperature system - you will need to keep yourself warm and dry to survive the intense Alberta winters
  • Improved Base Building and Fortification
  • Farming system - will interact with the season cycle system
  • Improved vehicles - vehicle damage, vehicle armour, vehicle repair
  • Hostile survivor AI
  • "Special" Infected - Infected that are more difficult to kill thanks to the equipment they were wearing before they turned
  • Radio broadcast system - for player-run radio stations and NPC-run radio stations
  • Voiced NPCs
  • Aircraft and Train vehicles

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Dead Matter depicts frequent violence and gore. The primary gameplay aspects of Dead Matter is using various weapons to kill Infected (Zombie-like creatures). Additionally, you can kill other player characters with these weapons. Attacking Infected or other players will create gory scenes.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10
    • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel i5-i5-7500
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 1660 Super or AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 50 GB available space
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 11
    • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel i5-9600K
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 2060 or Intel Arc A750 or AMD RX 5700 XT
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 50 GB available space

What Curators Say

22 Curators have reviewed this product. Click here to see them.

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