Deadlight is a post-zombiepocalypse 2D platformer set in Seattle, Washington circa 1986. Players take on the role of survival-hardened protagonist Randall Wayne as he navigates a wasteland of dilapidated buildings rendered in rotting earth tones and shadowy silhouettes. Similar to the Xbox Live Arcade classic Shadow Complex, perspective in Deadlight is fixed on a side-scrolling plane within a 3D world including animated back- and foregrounds that create a dynamic play between 2D and 3D. Tequila Works developers, however, took extra care to clarify that Deadlight isn’t simply a re-hashing of Shadow Complex or the like:
“We didn’t want to make just another Metroidvania game,” says Niklas Wennersten, a technical artist for Deadlight.
Indeed, the game stands apart through a blending of classic cinematic-platformer tropes, like those established by classics Flashback or Another World, with survival-horror gameplay elements like minimal ammo, environmental puzzles and a restrictive stamina meter. Deadlight may well be the first “survival-horror platformer” to exist, but what makes for an intriguing zombie game is its eschewal of excessive gore for a sparse and haunting atmosphere. Deadlight is slated for release on Xbox Live Arcade this summer.