Happy April! As the No More Room in Hell 2 development team continues working on the game, we have new assets to share with you! The shuffle scrape, shuffle scrape outside the window catches your attention. Something is outside, making steady progress towards you. Your breath catches, hopeful that you have not been spotted. An assessment of the room gives you a crowbar, and you go cautiously to check…
Your senses play an important role in your survival against an enemy that is relentless in their pursuit of you. Zombies do not care about the weather. They do not get tired or dehydrated, but they are starving. It can be too easy to forget that your enemy isn’t just the zombie at your doors, scratching, scrapping, and pursuing you. It’s the environment around you.
The Zombie Survival Guide advises would-be survivors to take care of their firearms and know what weapon will work best for you. When it’s you or them, zombies will not stop, they will not freeze up. They will not be scared of a bolt-action Hunter 85.
Know your weapons. With the Hunter 85 bolt-action rifle every shot has to count in the Zombie apocalypse. Players will need to take the time to aim and conserve their ammo. Use wisely and take care - having a firearm in an outbreak can be both a blessing and a curse.
For a survivor in No More Room in Hell 2, the Hunter 85 rifle is a high damage rifle that fires over a long range with precision. However, it is limited with the number of rounds in a mag, and fires slow. High Risk, High Reward.
The air is weighted, heavy, and your every step echoes your own heartbeat as you try to outrun that which will never cease…
Uneasy. Agitated. Tense. The pressure on our players builds with each location they explore, each survivor they search for, and each zombie they encounter. In No More Room in Hell 2, we want you to feel that weight on your shoulders, that voice at the back of your mind screaming at you to not open that next door, to not go into those dark woods, to not explore that abandoned place… and you will anyway. Because that is what a survivor does.
See you in May!
March Developer Blog
Welcome to March!
Development on No More Room in Hell 2 continues behind the scenes, and here we are to share a part of that development process. Let’s pull back the curtains on what we can show and celebrate the amazing progress by our hard working team!
Let’s raise a tower to our environment artists! This month's asset highlight is a guard tower that was to be rolled out and raised during the initial outbreak to keep an eye on the Dead as they encroached on the living. Though, they were probably unhappy to be stuck in there when the Dead realized fresh food was in a to go container.
The door gives a creak and swings open with the lightest pressure on it. There is a wet, drip sound, a squish. Frightened eyes assess the room for a weapon or an escape. In the doorway, their eyes are empty. They haven’t seen you.
Yet. With No More Room in Hell 2, that uneasy feeling will accompany you across the map, through your objectives, and could determine whether you would survive in a zombie apocalypse. Our concept art is key to bringing that feeling into all we do, all we see, and all we experience.
This month's audio file presents a pulsing deep unsettling experience and a stark reminder of the dangers present in No More Room in Hell 2, whether you can see them or not. Stay on your guard, listen with eyes open…
What do you see when you hear it?
February Developer Blog
Hello Survivors.
Welcome to February’s Development Update! Back at HQ, we understand that you out there want us to dig into the guts of what we’re working on, share deeply what’s inside and upcoming, and spew out the facts. So of course we’ve been looking forward to this blog and what we can currently share about No More Room in Hell 2.
We’ve also adjusted the FAQ’s on our Steam game page and in our Discord so go check those out for current information about No More Room in Hell 2 and what to expect ahead of the Early Access Launch. In the meantime enjoy this look into No More Room in Hell 2 development, and we’ll see you in March.
We’re going through February swinging. As a survivor, hatchets are useful in many ways - chop wood, cut through brush to clear a path, or to shave off bark for kindling. It’s also handy for dealing with those zombies that are trying to take a chunk out of you and is a good weapon to keep around when you want to cut short any attacks, or undead attackers who try to make you lunch. Aim for the head, follow through, and keep a sharp lookout for more zombies in the area. We have our own hatchet, sharpened and ready to swing, rendered in beautiful detail thanks to UE5’s Nanite Technology. We got you.
We have what looks like a tough situation! Wonder what part of the map that’s going to be, and how we’ll see it in No More Room in Hell 2.
Concept Art like this is vital to capturing the story that a scene can tell and in giving direction to different design aspects in a game. What story do you think is being told - share with us in the comments!
No moody atmosphere and apocalyptic land would be complete without the sounds that dive deep into your heart to pull out the helplessness and hope that can exist within No More Room in Hell 2. Close your eyes, hit play, and let us know what comes to your mind with this audio!
Thank you for reading and we’ll see you in March with another Developer Blog.
Have a great day Survivors!
January Developer Blog
Hello Survivors and welcome to 2024!
We are excited and looking forward to what this year will bring, such as more news about No More Room in Hell 2, more sneak peeks, and more details!
Since our last update, there has been so much work done that we look forward to sharing with you in the coming months. In the meantime, we wanted to thank you, our survivors, for your support throughout 2023.
We’ll see you in February with an update on what we’ve been working on, and regularly throughout 2024 to keep you posted on No More Room in Hell 2 and what to expect of the coming zombie apocalypse. This is just the start of our 2024 as we aim to share more news in the coming months.
Happy New Year, Survivors!
NMRiH2 2023 Update
Hello Survivors!
It’s been 6 months since our last developer update! We know - that's a bigger gap than any of us intended or expected, but the primary cause of this has been a huge focus on the development of the title (see below for more!).
We're keeping things fairly brief in this update: consider it the 'warm up' to something much bigger in the new year - and a preemptive note to explain that we don’t plan on sharing more for the rest of this year. The team is still hard at work with our heads down and spirits up!
Today we’re sharing a small preview of how the game is looking in Unreal Engine 5 through 3 new screenshots of the game in action. While we’ve had some progress put into a possible new trailer, that too will have to wait until 2024.
Development is going well - really well - and as part of our continued planning, we've decided to retarget our Early Access release date to the second half of 2024 to give the team enough time to make the game a truly worthy sequel to NMRiH1.
We also want to make sure we make a big splash when we launch - there are some great opportunities coming up throughout 2024 that mean we can really get the game “out there”.
We don't intend to delay the project further - we've put a lot of thought into choosing our new date, and that's what every one of us will be working towards. The established development studio that Lever Games has joined forces with has a metric ton of faith in the project, and are eager to give it the time it needs to make the game amazing, rather than rush it out.
Our design team has been hard at work improving on the core of what makes the game compelling. Community members who have seen glimpses of the game in the past can expect to see substantial improvements and modernization to the game mode and game loop, but with the same design philosophy, mechanics and heart at the core of NMRiH2.
We expect to announce our partnership with the development team we’ve joined forces with in the new year, as well. Our focus is on using this announcement to help make the most noise possible and bring more survivors into the community. It’s a competitive market for attention and we want this game to make big waves!
Thanks for being on this journey with us. We want this game to genuinely earn your attention and time. We’re so excited to show you more and to release the best zombie game ever made in 2024!
NMRiH2 Update + FAQ
Hey everyone!
No More Room in Hell 2 is alive, kicking (and screaming and clawing) -- and now in the middle of the most exciting period of development the project has seen yet! We can't wait to show you more soon.
We know things have been quiet lately surrounding our progress, but today we're excited to share a little more info with you about what's been happening in the background, the state of game production, and what you can expect in the near future. We have also prepared a Frequently Asked Questions list to A those burning Qs you have.
Since joining up with another established studio (the “partner” we previously mentioned - to be announced soon, see the FAQs below), we've been able to move from part-time development to full-time for all members of our team. We've also brought many more incredibly talented developers onboard (adding to the horde!). More dev hours and more working hands means the game's development is full steam ahead, now with the level of support we need to make NMRiH2 a beyond stellar game.
Combining with a larger developer and bringing on many new team members means we naturally need a bit more time before we're in a position to do a substantial 'dev update' that you guys are hoping to see, and we appreciate your patience with us.
Our original launch date of last October would have been an Early Access game, with additional core features rolling in over the coming months and years. As we headed towards that launch, we were in the midst of talks with another development studio about the game. Through these conversations, we were able to explore new ideas and expand on existing ones, and it quickly became clear that joining forces would enable us to deliver the best experience possible for an Early Access product, unlike anything else on the market. The additional time and resources we now have access to are immensely helping us achieve these goals.
TL:DR - we know it’s been quiet, but it’s been the “we’ve been busy” sort of quiet! Behind the scenes we’re doing everything we can to improve and enhance the narrative experience to make NMRiH2 feel like it really is the end of the world. One feature we're excited to be working on is barricading, adding another layer of interaction when trying to hold out against the claws and teeth of the horde. Additionally, from a technical standpoint, we’ve fully ported the project to Unreal Engine 5 and we are actively exploring all that this huge upgrade has to offer. Everything from character and zombie animations to environment lighting is getting completely overhauled as well - and we can’t wait to show off how much the game is progressing!
Ultimately we remain focused on and committed to making NMRiH2 the best game it can be. We're super confident that - by joining with an exciting studio and getting access to more resources, combined with your support as the NMRiH2 community - we'll be able to share some more details about our development progress in the coming months.
We really do appreciate your patience, and we want you all to know that we're working hard on not just the game itself, but also plans to ensure our communication with you all is clear, regular, and presented in the best way. We're so excited to show you what we've been working on!
FAQ
Who is the development studio you’re joining? We're not quite ready to reveal the details just yet, but we are sure you'll like them. We're working with them to plan how we can get the most benefit from a formal announcement: after all, we want to get as much support for the game as possible! We're actively working on the timeline for this, and all the cool stuff that this entails (think trailers, screenshots, etc!) - so please stick with us. It'll be worth the wait.
What is the new release date? Given we've joined another established studio and can now plan with extra resources, we're not yet in a position to commit to a firm release date at this time, but you'll be the first to know.
How many people are working on NMRiH2? A lot - meaning many more than we had previously! Our general development power has nearly quadrupled in the space of a few months. Going from “working after the kids have been put to bed” hours to a proper 9-5 full-time production is no straightforward task, and is another reason for the change to the game’s original release timeline. To put it into numbers, NMRiH2’s development team has gone from around 18 people working odd hours part-time to now over 40(!) members, most of whom work full-time, and there’s further room to grow too!
When will we see the next major news about NMRiH2? We expect to remain largely in “quiet mode” for the first half of this year and plan to have more to show by summer 2023. With this in mind, and given the nature of game development, things can change - and if they do, we'll make sure we give you an update and an explanation.
What is changing about NMRiH2? NMRiH2 will still be the game we’ve been working on for several years, just with more time, love and quality put into it. We're working on a whole host of improvements and additions now we're able to work on the game full-time. When we're in a position to showcase these properly and do them justice, we will!
Will the development of NMRiH2 affect NMRiH1? Nope! Increasing dev support for NMRiH2 has no impact on continued support for NMRiH1. The game continues to be maintained by a group of volunteers and will receive regular updates. Additionally we would like to assure players that NMRiH1 will remain free to play, and without paid DLC or microtransactions.
How can I stay up to date with the game's progress? The best place to be is our official Discord server. All updates will be posted in the Announcements channel.
NMRiH2 Special Announcement!
We have a very important announcement to make regarding our upcoming release date, and although it is short notice, it is for a very, very good reason. We know we wanted to play on Halloween, but please trust us that this means when you finally do play the game, it will be far beyond what you've seen so far!
If you have any questions at all, please feel free to hit up myself or Cenelder on our Discord. Lots of love, Maxx <3
Survivor Diary #4 - Broadway III Map Showcase
Survivor Diary #4
I’ve lived in a city my whole life, and you get so used to the sounds around you: doors slamming, police sirens, people talking outside your apartment at 2am; dogs barking. All of this fades into the background, becoming a comfort blanket of white noise that you barely notice. And then one day, it’s gone. The streets are silent. And suddenly, it’s the smallest sounds that start to leap out at you: the dragging of feet outside your door. The scratching of rotting fingernails against the glass of the window you’re hiding behind. A breath that lingers and crackles, echoing down the empty alley below. Luckily there’s still some power, meaning night isn’t as terrifying as it could be. I don’t know how long that’ll last though. Sometimes I can hear gunshots in the distance: somebody’s still out there, fighting, surviving. And that gives me a little bit of hope. I swear I heard a couple of people run past yesterday - the National Guard checkpoints can be a gold mine, if you get to them before other survivors do. I’m rounding up the last of my supplies tonight - running low on bandages. Once I’ve got enough, I’m gonna go find that antenna. This city might have been my home once, but it’s a cold, grey, mass grave now. Either I get out, or I join the rest of the poor saps who tried to make it here. I just want to hear voices again. Not a radio broadcast, but actual people talking nearby. I don’t care if it’s outside a tent, or in some big shared barracks. I just want to know I’m not alone anymore. I just wanna feel like there’s a world left.
Note from Nay0r:
Welcome to Broadway - the shattered remnants of a city once filled with life, and now the domain of the dead. You’ll be hacking your way through crowds of zeds lit up the burning carcass of a rescue chopper, frantically reloading as you drag yourself through the sewers of the city, and bandaging your wounds in the flickering lights of what was once your home. Behind every corner lurks more threats, but perhaps you’ll make it out…if you work together.
Early Access Reminder As always, we treat the words ‘Early Access’ the way they’re meant to be treated, particularly as we’re a team working around the world, many of us in our spare time, balancing NMRIH2 alongside supporting our families and full-time careers. Launching in Early Access gives us the opportunity to open up our production and growth to people who want to play an early and active role in our development journey – sloppy undead warts and all! By releasing in EA, our sales will help us provide the means for our team to keep working on the game through to Version 1. We’re hard at work making something awesome, and Early Access is a big milestone on that journey, and it’s exactly that: a milestone! We have a lot of things planned beyond EA, from optimisation to more maps; new weapons to feedback-led improvements. By joining us on this journey, you’re playing a key role in making NMRIH2 the best it can be. We can’t wait to have you along for the ride.
Survivor Diary #3 - Zombies!
You know who I feel really sorry for? The gravediggers and funeral directors. What hell are you supposed to do when the goods start walking around biting folks? When this whole thing started, all we cared about was tearing away from the claws and teeth of our brothers, mothers, best friends…we didn’t think about the way some of them moved differently to others; how some still clung onto relics from their past lives, like they had some sort of vestigial remnant of what they once were buried deep in their rotten skulls. Those of us who survived more than a few days started to recognise that - in this horde of death and decay - there were certain ‘types’ of zed. I’m not talking about the wacky crap you’d see in movies - “oh my god that zombie has two heads!!”, “Jesus, look at the size of his tongue!”. I’m talking about real stuff - how some moved faster than others, or how certain zeds didn’t care so much about devouring as they did infecting… So, let’s play a little game called ‘know thy enemy’. First off, you’ve got Walkers. These guys are the most common type of zed you’ll encounter - slow-moving, slow-thinking, but they don’t need to think fast when all they want to do is make a meal outta you. You might think it’s easy to get away from a Walker - hell, I used to think so too - but the scariest thing is…you eventually have to sleep. Walkers don’t. They’ll just keep coming. And one night you’ll be lying there, wiping the dust from your eyes, and then a sharp pain will shoot up your leg… Next up, the Runners. Now this is where we separate the kids from the adults. Runners do exactly that: they run, and god-damn do they run fast. Whatever their fitness was in their past life, these zeds move like lightning. But, unbelievably, that’s not the worst part. Oh no, it gets way worse. Turns out Runners don’t care so much about turning you into pulled pork like the Walkers do. Instead, these freaks come screaming out of nowhere to take a bite out of you and spread the infection. I’ve known too many good people fight off a Runner thinking they had a lucky break…’til they saw the bite on their arm, and realised the Runner got exactly what it wanted. Rest easy, Brett. And what about the Shamblers? Imagine a food waste bin that’s been out in the summer sun for 3 or 4 weeks, crawling with maggots. Every time you walk past it, your stomach turns and you fight back the urge to vomit. Now imagine that times ten - and you might get somewhere close to how bad these freaks stink. Shamblers stagger through the streets, and if you breathe in their stench, you’re gonna find it hard to breathe...I even heard from one group of Survivors that the fumes caused one of their guys to turn after he died. Sounds like a tall tale, but you never know these days. Oh, and to make matters worse, if a Shambler sees you, you better kill him quick - otherwise he’ll start screaming, and we all know what that leads to… There’s more zed types than these three, but I’ll save that for another night. Something or someone is coming up the road. Ellie was meant to be on watch…aw, hell.
Note from Cenelder
In No More Room in Hell 2, our vision of Hell isn’t far from the real world, and so our zeds are modelled on the ‘classic’ zombie movie: rotten flesh, grounded in reality. There’s real terror to be found in loading your last shells as a horde of Walkers shuffles towards you, blocking your only escape route… But - as our Survivor has made clear - Hell is the domain of a whole host of zed types. Runners will sprint out of alleyways, causing panic and disarray, whilst some of you might find yourselves choking on the putrid stench of the Shambler if you let it get too close. And these aren’t the only zeds lurking in the shadows. Keep your eyes out for future Survivor Diaries, where we’ll introduce you to a few more denizens of the dark…
Early Access Reminder
As always, we treat the words ‘Early Access’ the way they’re meant to be treated, particularly as we’re a team working around the world, many of us in our spare time, balancing NMRIH2 alongside supporting our families and full-time careers. Launching in Early Access gives us the opportunity to open up our production and growth to people who want to play an early and active role in our development journey – sloppy undead warts and all! By releasing in EA, our sales will help us provide the means for our team to keep working on the game through to Version 1. We’re hard at work making something awesome, and Early Access is a big milestone on that journey, and it’s exactly that: a milestone! We have a lot of things planned beyond EA, from optimisation to more maps; new weapons to feedback-led improvements. By joining us on this journey, you’re playing a key role in making NMRIH2 the best it can be. We can’t wait to have you along for the ride.
Survivor Diary #2 – Tutorial Level Reveal
Survivor Diary #2
For the first few days, all we did was survive. Scratching what living we could from the cold, dead ashes of a world that – what felt like only yesterday – had been screaming at us to keep consuming the super-size burgers and pumpkin spice lattes. A lot of people relied on the ‘survival guides’ from the Old World, and if you look reaaaaally carefully at a horde, I swear you’ll sometimes see zeds clutching those books. Turns out that we took a lot for granted. Seriously, when was the last time you properly thought about where your electricity came from? You’d just hit the plug and off you go. Those of us that made it through that dark period quickly realised that the old laws had been torn up, and surviving this Hell was going to need a whole new set of rules. Things ain’t so easy now. These days, if you need power, you need to find your own generator; your own fuel. Been injured? No more hospitals, so you better know how to use a first aid kit. Someone trying to break into your shelter? No phones to call for help, and if a fight starts, hope you know how to fire a gun or swing an axe… Thankfully, some bright sparks have begun writing some of the ‘new rules’ down and sharing them in safe houses. If you’re lucky enough to bump into other survivors who have a shred of humanity left, one of the most common conversation topics is the new tips and tricks that we’re hearing on the grapevine. Last night I spent an hour or two talking to this young couple from Prospect. We’d been running from the same horde, ended up crossing paths, and (after some “who the hell are you?!” tension) agreed to help each other out for a couple of days. They’d noticed my shooting was a little rusty (hey, in my defence, it’s been years since the Academy), and so we spent some time really making sure I could focus before taking my shots. Made a hell of a difference today when we scouted the cemetery together. Obviously we don’t talk too loudly or for too long, because you don’t want any unwanted company to come a-knockin’. But in a broken world, the ‘new rules’ feel like a good way of sticking together.
Note from Hawk:
The end of the world is a scary place, and there’s a lot to learn if you want to survive! In No More Room in Hell, things aren’t as simple as health bars. You’ll be facing a host of challenges, like balancing your ammo, juggling inventory weight, tackling environmental obstacles, and curing infections. And if you want to call for help, you’ll need to know how to power up the radio! To make our game as accessible as possible for both new and experienced players, we’ve been speaking with some of our most trusted Survivors and have pulled together a Tutorial to help you learn the ropes. We’ve made sure the Tutorial covers the key elements of the gameplay loop and how to survive, so we highly recommend completing it before heading out into the big, wide, zombie-filled world!
Early Access Reminder
As always, we treat the words ‘Early Access’ the way they’re meant to be treated, particularly as we’re a team working around the world, many of us in our spare time, balancing NMRIH2 alongside supporting our families and full-time careers. Launching in Early Access gives us the opportunity to open up our production and growth to people who want to play an early and active role in our development journey – sloppy undead warts and all! By releasing in EA, our sales will help us provide the means for our team to keep working on the game through to Version 1. We’re hard at work making something awesome, and Early Access is a big milestone on that journey, and it’s exactly that: a milestone! We have a lot of things planned beyond EA, from optimisation to more maps; new weapons to feedback-led improvements. By joining us on this journey, you’re playing a key role in making NMRIH2 the best it can be. We can’t wait to have you along for the ride.
