Outbreak: The New Nightmare has transitioned out of Early Access and is now available. We have multiple bundles available at hefty discounts across the Outbreak franchise to celebrate!
Thank for all of the community support during Early Access! The response to the game has been fantastic! As a solo-indie developer, I've worked daily on Outbreak: The New Nightmare and Outbreak for over 2+ years. It's wonderful to see so many people playing and enjoying these games across Steam and Xbox One.
Thank you very much and I look forward to new adventures in the Outbreak series in the future. Join us on Discord to find some co-op buddies and let's return to the world of survival horror!
Welcome to Outbreak! Top tips for new survivors!
Welcome to all of the new players of Outbreak: The New Nightmare! Here's some handy tips to start you off in your adventures!
In the Options menu, there is a quality option called Insane. When it is selected, the game maxes out the number of shadows, shadow quality, shadow draw distance, AA, AF and much more. It will bring high-end machines to their knees. It's there to assist with getting awesome screenshots, but it's not meant for playing.
Try 'High' or 'Very High' instead as your quality option. They will still look great, have dynamic shadows, high AA and AF, but they will run considerably better!. So don't pick Insane! If you have a low-end machine, select 'Very Low' or 'Low'. On those quality settings, the game will aggressive LOD models to help improve your framerate.
Playing with Friends - I can't see their game!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare uses a region-based cloud networking set-up for multiplayer. It is NOT P2P and almost guarantees that you will NOT have connection issues connecting to friends. It's a good thing. BUT! YOU MUST BE ON THE SAME REGION AS YOUR FRIENDS TO SEE THEIR GAMES! In the Options menu, you can change your region. Move it off Best Ping and have everyone select a region that is closest to the group.
Moving Your Character - Camera angle changes mess me up!
If you're having trouble controlling your character using the Modern control scheme, change to the Classic Tank control scheme. This is designed to mimic classic survival horror tank controls and you will not become disoriented when camera changes happen. It's a little less responsive than modern, but you'll thank yourself in the end for using it. Give it a shot!
Game Difficulty - It's way too hard!!!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is meant to be a difficult experience. You are weak, have virtually no supplies and enemies are everywhere. But, you can stack the odds in your favor a bit!
When selecting your character, pick Lydia, Hank or Harry. Lydia and Hank start with powerful weapons. Harry starts with a larger than normal inventory. In addition, make sure you play on Normal difficulty. On Normal, you receive a significant health and healing bonus. When you're in single-player, the boost very substantial. As more players join the game, the boost diminishes.
Also, as you play you will gain XP and level up your character. Each character has unique stats and abilities. Passive stats just become better when leveling up, but you'll want to manually equip your abilities as you unlock them. Play to your strengths!
Darkness - I can't see anything!
You can toggle a persistent flashlight using the 'F' key or clicking in the right thumbstick on your gamepad when not aiming. This flashlight is available in all scenarios and can greatly help you if the game is too dark!
Good Luck!
The nightmare is brutral, unforgiving and frustrating. Arm yourself well, use your resources effectively, don't waste time and keep fighting. Oh, and USE YOUR MAP! Good luck!
Thanks to Standemonium!! and Mr RSpeedy for some of the screenshots used in this post!
Weekly Dev Update - 1/4/2018
Hey Survivors! We made it!
Leaving Steam Early Access on Jan 5th at 1PM EST!
After just about 7 months in Early Access, it's now time to move on. The game has been content complete for about two months now and the focus since then has been polishing through smaller, less drastic patches. As of right now, the game is fairly stable, runs much better than when we launched Early Access and represents the experience I was aiming for! I'm very happy to transition out of Early Access and allow a larger group of players to start trying to survive the nightmare!
THANK YOU to everyone for your support, feedback and constructive criticism during Early Access. I directly implemented tons of community feedback and I encourage you to go back and look at all of our patch notes to see that evolution over time!
But... the game isn't perfect! Why would you leave Early Access!?
Well, the fact is the game will never be perfect. I'm a solo indie developer (with some awesome community support from Standemonium!! and Mr RSpeedy!) and there are hard limits to my resources and time. I've built Outbreak and Outbreak: The New Nightmare over 2+ years working hours daily. I fronted the budget for these games. And I'm very proud of what was produced here. :)
But it's important to aim for milestones and recognize when you hit them. 'The enemy of good is perfection' and I honestly feel Outbreak: The New Nightmare is good. Maybe the animations aren't perfect (I've spent two months trying to upgrade them, but the breakages were too significant), maybe performance isn't perfect (but it has come SO FAR in Early Access), but what's important is the game has been getting fantastic community reception and people are having fun! The content is here. The 4-player co-op is here. Go survive the nightmare and have some fun!
And this isn't the end. Games never stop being developed. There will be patches. There will be new titles in the Outbreak series. This isn't goodbye, it's just the beginning.
So I ask you to look past some of the rough edges and focus on having fun!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is now available on Xbox One!
In addition, you can now find Outbreak: The New Nightmare on Xbox One. It's a special single-player only release on that console, but it has all of the same content and is still a great adventure. Co-op may come sometime down the road, but I just wasn't able to wing it with my resources. But the game is a lot of fun and runs best on Xbox One X! I encourage you to give it a look!
THANK YOU!
I really mean it. Thank you for all of your feedback, kind words, criticism, streaming, playing and everything else you've done to share the game. I'm very happy that we have an awesome and fun community here! Come talk to us on Discord and grab some co-op buddies! It's time to have some fun, so get out there and start surviving to Wave 25 of Onslaught mode!
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! We're just days away from the transition out of Early Access and our release on Xbox One! Thank you for all of your support in 2017, including all of the great feedback, bug reports, feature requests, game streams and anything else you did to support this game! We have an awesome community and it's all thanks to YOU! Just a quick reminder that the game price will be increasing once we transition out of Early Access, so grab it now while it's cheap!
Thank you again and have fun surviving in 2018!
Weekly Dev Update - 12/29/2017
HAPPY NEW YEAR! We're about one week out from Outbreak: The New Nightmare releasing on both Steam and Xbox One!
A Brief Development History
I started work developing Outbreak and Outbreak: The New Nightmare over 2 years ago. These games were created in Unity, written in C# and have been the result of multiple hours of work daily over that time primarily by me. I had some great community support and help along the way from folks like Standemonium!!, Mr RSpeedy and a few other awesome folks as well, which kept me going during those long days. These games were produced with virtually no budget (I paid out of pocket for the dev costs) and were created because I wanted to play games in this genre, even though large developers didn't seem to make them anymore.
Working off of the experiences I had with classic survival horror games of the 90s and early 2000s, I tried to create an experience that I wanted to play. As we near the full release of the second game in this franchise, I very much hope you are enjoying them too. Don't be shy about filing a positive Steam or Xbox review if you enjoyed the experience as well!
Steam Release Details
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is transitioning out of Steam Early Access on or around Jan. 5th, 2018. During the release process, the price of the game will be increasing. As soon as that increase is accepted by Valve, I'll trigger the transition to a full release. The game is currently content complete, so what you buy and play today on discount is the same experience folks will be playing next week. SO GRAB IT NOW WHILE IT'S CHEAP!
Xbox One Release Details
The Xbox One release of Outbreak: The New Nightmare is a special single-player only version of the game. It's currently available for pre-order now at a 20% discount and will be fully released on January 3rd, 2018. It features significantly improved performance when played on an Xbox One X console.
So what else is new?
A lot of the work over the last two weeks has been preparing for the full launches of Outbreak: The New Nightmare on both platforms. I've been finishing up paperwork, reaching out to press, trying to line up reviewers and much more. If you're a reviewer or streamer and can verify your YouTube or Twitch profile, please reach out and I can provide you with press copies for either platform. In the next week, I'll be doing some streaming and celebrating the full launch of both platforms.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you again for the continued support for the game. It's been great seeing so many new folks playing and enjoying their expeirence. If you enjoy the game and feel it deserves it, PLEASE file a positive Steam review and share your thoughts! If you have any feedback, reach out to me anytime! Thank you and have fun!!!
LAST CHANCE: End of Early Access Sale! 50% off through Jan. 4th! Price increasing afterwards!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is celebrating the end of Early Access with a 50% off sale through Jan 4th, 2018! After the sale, we're transitioning to the full release AND raising the price! Grab it now because it won't be this cheap for a long time!
We made it! Leaving Early Access around Jan. 5th, 2018!
It's been an incredible ride but we're finally at the end of Early Access! After over TWO years in development primarily by a single developer with no budget (and some awesome assists along the way from Standemonium!! and Mr RSpeedy!) we're ready to leave Early Access! Building Outbreak and Outbreak: The New Nightmare have been AWESOME experiences for me!
Thanks to all of the awesome community support along the way! This definitely will not be the last Outbreak experience. Who knows where the series will go next... but I definitely have quite a lot of ideas!
We're also launching on Xbox One!
We're happy to announce Outbreak: The New Nightmare will be appearing on Xbox One as a single player experience. You can pre-order it RIGHT NOW and it releases on January 3rd! Grab it during pre-order for a 20% discount!
THANK YOU!
Thank you to everyone for their support during the development of the game. I've received so many kind and supporting messages. It really helped keep development going during those long nights (I was usually spending multiple hours per day on the project over the last two years!).
Thank you and enjoy the game! And grab it while it's cheap! :D
Weekly Dev Update - 12/10/2017
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is leaving Steam Early Access in early January 2018. When it transitions to full release, the price will be increasing. Grab it while it's cheap and save some $$$! The game will also be releasing as a single-player title on Xbox One on January 3rd. Preorders will be starting about 2 weeks prior to the launch date.
Heck of a ride
Outbreak: The New Nightmare has now been in Early Access for nearly six months. In that time, I've added huge amounts of content, features, fixes and polish. Much of this work and the shape of the game has been driven by YOU! Community feedback has been frequent and very constructive. A lot of the features present today are because the community requested them. I'm very thankful that everyone has shown the game such support!
Now that the game is content complete, we're preparing to transition to a full release. Games are never perfect and there will always be areas that could use a bit more polish, or more features necessary, but it's important to know when it's time to cut a release. As a single developer (with virtually no budget), I'm very proud of the game that was produced. I've learned a lot during the development of this title and I'm very excited to lend that experience towards future survival horror titles.
Thanks to everyone in the community for supporting both Outbreak: The New Nightmare and Outbreak. Thanks very much for the contributions of Standemonium towards the scenario design for the office and city locations. Thanks to Mr RSpeedy for his massive community contributions (and the great gif above). And a massive thank you to everyone who played the game and took the time to provide Steam reviews as well!
Console port?
With the imminent transition out of Early Access, it seems like an excellent time to announce the upcoming release of the Xbox One version of the game. Outbreak: The New Nightmare launches on Xbox One on January 3rd, 2018! Preorders will start about two weeks before the release date. As with the XB1 version of Outbreak, this will launch as a single-player affair at a lower price point. But it'll still be great fun!
So what other development is happening right now?
I'm currently spending my dev time looking into upgrading the underlying engine to see if we can get any additional performance or graphics polish gains. The upgrade is fairly rough now with the size of the project so no promises, but it would be useful to be able to be on the latest version of Unity.
Thank you!
Thank you again for making the development of Outbreak: The New Nightmare and Outbreak successful and positive experiences! We have an awesome community and I'm very excited for the larger Steam community to be able to play and enjoy the game! Thank you!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare v5.10.0 Released!
We're happy to announce that v5.10.0 of Outbreak: The New Nightmare has been released. It includes the following changes:
Zombies no longer attack through doors. If a door is unlocked, they will open it and wait a short time before performing a subsequent action.
Buffed the boss of the Epidemic scenario.
Minor UI changes across the game.
Added additional gameplay tips to the main menu.
Added button to force the next tip to display on demand on the main menu.
Postgame kill counter and accuracy now only tracks gun-type weapons.
Grenade and explosion kills are now tracked properly, but does not impact accuracy.
The Shotgun and Shotgun Shells will now appear more frequently in lower Onslaught waves.
ICYMI: Outbreak: The New Nightmare leaves Early Access in Jan 2018 + Price Increase Incoming
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is leaving Early Access in January 2018. When the game transitions to a full release, the price will increase. Grab it now at the cheaper price point and tell your friends!
With just little over a month to go until the transition to full release, the nightmare is becoming more and more real. This game has had a fantastic run in Early Access (almost 6 months now!) and have added a tremendous amount of content, features, fixes, performance boosts and much much more. The community has been fantastic in giving the game non-stop feedback that has directly shaped the direction and presentation of the experience.
THANK YOU for all of your support, well wishes and thoughts. With co-op survival horror dying off in the last few years, it has been awesome to be a part of revitalizing the genre. And I feel it turned out pretty well for being primarily worked on by a single developer for over two years with no budget. ;)
As we close in on the final stretch, there's a few more fixes and tweaks that are being eyed up right now. Some of them are rather dangerous, so they might not make the cut, but polish is always on my mind. I'm also busy working on the console port as well.
I also want to make sure to call out the support from key community members like Standemonium!! and Mr RSpeedy. Stan was a great help in layouting the office and city initial environments and Speedy has been a fantastic community leader and coordinator (and trailer participant!). Their support helped me greatly through the daily grind as I continued to build each piece and integrate necessary assets. (And thank you to the Unity Asset Store creators as well!)
I'm very excited for the full release and to begin looking into the next survival horror experience I'd like to make. Thank you everyone for playing and supporting the game! We have some very exciting times ahead in January 2018 and I'm looking forward to playing the game with everyone.
THANK YOU!!! ːsteamhappyː
Trading Cards Released + 40% off for the Steam Autumn Sale!
Steam Trading Cards Released!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare now supports Steam Trading Cards! Collect all of the character cards including a monster card, badges, backgrounds and more while playing! You'll see these drops pretty frequently. If you've played in the past, you might just find some cards showing up in your inventory as well! ;)
Steam Autumn Sale!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare is 40% off for the Steam Autumn Sale! Remember, We're leaving Steam Early Access in January 2018 and the game price will be increasing! If you're interested in grabbing it before the price increase (for you AND your friends), it's a great time as the game is nearly content complete! Have fun!
Thanks again for everyone's support and best of luck trying to survive the nightmare!
