The irony of Undying exists in its very title and premise. As a whole, the zombie genre has seen its birth, death and rebirth in an almost phoenix-like cycle as media continues to stagger forward. In my lifetime, I’ve bore witness to The Walking Dead, Left 4 Dead, and the madness of One Cut of the Dead. In that same vein, I’ve also watched crafting and survival games plumb the depths of human patience as we get another and another title promising to be something unique, while still asking players to harvest trees, loot corpses, and constantly mash things together in order to stay alive. So when all of these well trodden grounds fuse together, it can go one of two ways: a positively electrifying journey, or a familiar and arduous slog.

Set in the midst of a rather generic zombie apocalypse, Anling is trying to get her son, Cody, safely to whatever future might exist for him. Suddenly, their shelter is raided and, in the process of escape, Angling is bitten. Knowing that the disease will slowly take her, Angling now is desperately trying to prioritize her son’s future while actively worrying about her own. Cody is young and things are uncertain, but there is one absolute in what horrifying end awaits this mother and child. Wasting no time, Angling attempts to do what she can, and seeks a place where Cody can thrive, teaches him whatever she can, and does her best to hide the oncoming destruction that she’s sure to wreak. But will she be strong enough to leave when the time comes, or will it be up to Cody to eventually end his own mother?

Behold, the last time things went well for Angling and Cody.

Undying has a very novel premise from the drop. By infecting Angling, you have a sixty day timer in which to carve out the best possible future for Cody (which, by the way, VERY generous time frame on that zombie disease). As time progresses, Angling will become more and more symptomatic, and you have to decide at the start of the day how this infection will progress. Because you believe help is not coming, this open ended game gives you plenty of ideas on how to move forward for Cody’s sake. You can connect with other survivors and try to carve out a haven for the boy’s future. You can hunker down, just the two of you, and hope you can teach him enough on your own. Or you can simply run amok and see what the procedurally generated map will provide, as areas slowly unlock and reveal themselves through events and timing.

To be frank, there is a ton in Undying that I couldn’t see because the game is shockingly vast in terms of everything that appears. While the presentation implies a zombie survival game, there’s a degree of roguelike that influences the generation of maps, encampments, and items. After you manage to make it out of Angling’s home, the nearby settlement you first find might be rife with food, survivors, items, or just a barren locale. Every time Angling woke up to another horrible day, I chose to go with “symptoms” that seemed most relevant to extending my gameplay, like suddenly being okay with eating uncooked meat. Also, since my main focus was to keep Cody alive and potentially give him any sort of chance at survival, it behooved me to figure out what not only was ideal for him in the now, but also in the future.

Cormack McCarthy’s The Road is a fantastic comparison piece to the tone and concept of Undying, both in execution and grim reality. For Angling and Cody, each day is a slow plod towards a tomorrow tinged with pain and loss. Each action Angling does – from cooking on the stove top to breaking open a chest with a crowbar – has the option for Cody to observe, but it’s not a passive action. The player needs to encourage Cody to pay attention so he can learn what you’re doing, and then you need to make the decision to tell Cody to do said action again in the future to increase his skill. At the beginning, this is arduous and tedious, particularly as Cody can’t do many things fast or effectively. You might feel that it’s easier just to do them yourself, like any parent would.

In another life, Angling would be teaching him how to fish out coins instead of purify water.

But time is both a teacher and a punisher, ensuring that you reap what you sow in what you do early on. Cody’s constant dependance for food and water, not to mention his inherent fear of the world around him, can be frustrating and lead to some game over scenarios pretty easily for your initial playthroughs. I will say that, in spite of the difficulty level being called “tranquil,” there’s nothing relaxing about Undying on even the easiest setting. Your inventory is limited, time slips away, and sustaining both Anling and Cody in terms of nourishment, rest and medical supplies (which are chronically in short stock) can do your head in. If you’re here purely for crafting or zombies, you’ll be caught off guard, unpleasantly so, with the degree of simulation you need to maintain. It takes up a lot of your time in first playthroughs to figure out the balance of it all.

Yet it gets better, slowly but surely. As heartbreaking as the implications may be, Cody becomes more independent, more callous, less afraid all the time. The young boy who cowers at zombie attacks and desperately needs to hold your hand even within your own home can now explore and forage by himself, and takes to slaying the undead with the same degree of proficiency as his mother. He’ll engage more and more with additional survivors, all of whom have their own angles and purpose (and, thankfully, the game is devoid of the Evil For No Reason NPC). You’ll begin to realize that Cody will probably be okay, but you cannot be certain if he’ll have the fortitude to do what he must until the very last second, when Angling’s final beat of humanity dissolves.

This dialogue tree has nothing to do with zombies, there was just someone rude at Target.

From a technical standpoint, Undying has its hits and its misses, particularly playing on the Nintendo Switch. Load times are noticeable between areas, but it’s not a game breaker and definitely not long enough to irk me terribly. Most everything gets drawn on screen without hiccups, though you’ll see a little hesitation when engaging in combat, which happens more than I’d like. Especially because targeting is a bit wonky for Angling, you’ll want to experiment a bit to see how well she does with fighting zombies (and the occasional human who wants to take off your head). I didn’t encounter anything that broke the game outright, but you can encounter moments where, due to the autosaving nature of the game, you’ll end up softlocked at a point where Angling is doomed to die without any chance to save yourself. It’s not often, but it’s frustrating when it happens.

And from a purely gameplay point of view, Undying really bothers me with the inherent limitations of a survival crafting game. You never feel like you have enough slots to keep everything you need. Materials run out, weapons break, fuel (for yourself and your vehicle) deplete faster than you can find it, and you really will have a couple runs where life is pointless because you just can’t keep things together. There’s this paradox where two people are reliant on each other, but each would thrive so much better if one would simply leave or die. Yet Cody is eight years old, he cannot, emotionally, separate from the only family member in his life during this time. Angling’s entire purpose is to ensure Cody can live; cutting his life short to elongate her already limited one is pointless.

This moment at the very beginning of the game shows that there is no happy ending.

The core ideas of Undying are what keep me coming back and what makes me want to see it through again and again. Sure, there are some translation errors, but the beating heart of it all – to make a future for your child against the screaming of the blade of time – is what makes itself most well known. It’s bleak, it’s sad, but it’s a microcosm of what we do in the every day now. Carry it on your Nintendo Switch, play it on your PC, encounter it however you’d like. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn fine and has good intent. If nothing else, plan to get a bit choked up and enjoy some storytelling. Angling will give her very last for Cody, and she shall. As McCarthy said: “When one has nothing left, make ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.”

Undying is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Undying was provided by the publisher.