Video Game / The Third Shift

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The Third Shift is a retraux pixel art Survival Horror slash Explorer Horror video game developed by Teebowah Games, and released on April 21, 2026.

Set in a Menacing Museum located in Roanoke Island, North Carolina, the unnamed protagonist is an Unlucky Everydude in need of a job to pay his bills. He decides to work at the Roanoke Museum, who are currently recruiting a night shift watchman. Working under the head of security Daniel, the Protagonist is given the task of helping to maintain the museum's various exhibits while looking out for potential break-ins and troublemakers. However, all is not as it seems, and he soon finds out the Dark Secret the museum is hiding underneath its seemingly average exterior.

Previews: Second Hour Trailer, Promo Commercial, Final Trailer, Release Date Announcement

Tropes found in this game include:

• Achilles' Heel: The zombies are weak to electrical shocks, since they can paralyse their still-intact nerves and disrupt the Black Magic animating them. Even Elite Zombies who can No-Sell blunt trauma suffer from this, as Daniel finds out the hard way in Ending A and B.
• Action Mom: Connie is (or rather, was) a mother whose son's corpse went missing near the Roanoke Island area, who then proves to be capable of fighting and taking out dozens of zombies with just a baseball bat and her own determination.
• Affably Evil: Ending B reveals that the main antagonists are this. Surprisingly, all of the Council members, who all want to conquer the US via Zombie Apocalypse, are genuinely polite and friendly towards the Protagonist as well as each other. In fact, they're surprisingly benevolent as bosses to the Protagonist when compared to Daniel, as they actually keep their word of giving the Protagonist a much better job and actual power, albeit by forcibly killing then resurrecting him as an Elite Zombie.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Once the Protagonist plants the bait for Bertha the shark in the Aquarium section and stabilizes the final pump, he returns the same way he came from only to find two zombies blocking the path and heading for him. However, as soon as they step on the marked platform Bertha swoops in and devours them, clearing the path for the Protagonist. Unfortunately, by doing so she gets zombified herself and she pursues the Protagonist later on by using her devoured prey's limbs to move on solid ground.
• Always Chaotic Evil: All of the zombies encountered at the Roanoke Museum are Ax-Crazy ranting monstrosities who will brutally kill the Protagonist and other humans on sight. Even the Elite Zombie Council members capable of rational thought are no better, as they desire to conquer the United States via a Zombie Apocalypse.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Council, who are revealed to be the undead descendants of the original Roanoke Island colonists. As their leader himself states, they've been performing these unholy rituals since the colony's founding all the way back in 1587. They've also been gathering human corpses to "recruit" into an undead army, in order to unleash a Zombie Apocalypse upon the rest of the United States.
• Anti-Frustration Feature: As the Roanoke Museum starts collapsing on the path to Ending A, the falling debris will not damage or kill the player in the slightest. This is fortunate as it falls rather randomly and quickly.
• And I Must Scream: Ending D has the Protagonist killed and maimed by the zombie horde on Daniel's orders. But rather than let him stay dead, Daniel has the Protagonist's soul brought back and grafted, literally and figuratively, into a static display showcasing his exposed nervous system...complete with functioning eyes.
• Ax-Crazy: The zombies' general behaviour consists of maniacal, vaguely intelligible rambling while they forcefully grab and brutally maul to death any living humans they come across.
• Bad Boss: The people in charge of running the Roanoke Museum are, gradually revealed as the story progresses, not exactly the best of superiors towards their employees.
  • Daniel. Aside from severely underpaying his new employee, he also assigns the Protagonist with increasingly dangerous tasks (including feeding a shark) that were explicitly not mentioned in the job descriptions, refuses to give the full details about his new workplace or provide a tour of each area of the museum, repeatedly gaslights him into continuing his work regardless of how dangerous the situation becomes, and ultimately tries to murder the Protagonist for knowing too much about the zombies and the conspiracy in the museum, successfully doing so in Endings C, D, and E.
  • Upper management of the museum counts as well; according to the notes found in the game the museum seems to suffer from No OSHA Compliance which is a serious safety hazard for it's workers, as one poor soul found out shortly before he was devoured by Bertha. While the management tried to assuage other employees' concerns it did not quell their protests, and the management made a list of workers considered a "liability" in response. Given that the museum is ran by the Council whose modus operandi is killing people and turning them into plastinated zombies, the lax safety measures appear to be very deliberate.
• The Bad Guy Wins: All the endings except Ending A has Daniel and/or the Council come out victorious in their goals. In endings E and F, the protagonist is shortly killed after escaping, with the villains' plans going on without a hitch. In Ending C and D, the protagonist is killed by Daniel and made into either an exhibit or furniture. In Ending B, after Daniel is disposed of, the Council forcibly recruits the protagonist into their ranks to aid them with their next plan, ultimately making the thwarting of the museum plan pointless.
• Bald of Evil: All of the zombies encountered have little to no hair on their heads, and all of them are Ax-Crazy monsters out for blood.
• Big Bad: Daniel, the head of security of the Roanoke Museum. While he's not the head of the conspiracy surrounding the Roanoke Museum, he is the person responsible for ensuring that the conspiracy continues, and directly antagonizes the rest of the cast by either stopping them or gaslighting them into cooperating.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Daniel, who is part of an undead Ancient Conspiracy, uses the museum's Sinister Surveillance system to ensure that nobody is interfering with their Evil Plan. It even becomes a major gameplay mechanic — should the player ever use the crowbar in an area with surveillance on, he'll know that the player has one, and will thwart any attempt to use it against him later on, locking you out of Endings A and B.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ending A has Connie making a timely arrival and bashing the undead Council members confronting the Protagonist, preventing him from being captured or killed.
• Big Good: Albert is gradually revealed to not only be a key ally to the Protagonist and Connie, but is also the only person fully aware of the Ancient Conspiracy in charge of the Roanoke Museum. In fact, helping Albert unleash a White Magic ritual is the key to stopping the Council's and Daniel's Evil Plan from coming into motion.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Daniel. At first, he seems like a Nice Guy and a Reasonable Authority Figure, helping the Protagonist by helping him navigate around the museum via radio, and giving him useful advice from time to time. In reality, he's the Dragon-in-Chief behind an undead Conspiracy, responsible for keeping their Evil Plan (unleashing a Zombie Apocalypse on the USA) a secret from the outside world until it's too late.
• Black Magic: The Council's members practice a form of Black Magic that allows them to resurrect the dead as Ax-Crazy Mooks loyal to them, as well as allow the Council members to achieve a form of immortality.
• Body Horror: Several gruesome examples.
  • The plastinated corpses on display in the museum are revealed to be undead Ax-Crazy monstrosities who will brutally maul the player to death when they get close. The game treats us to horrifically detailed close-ups of their plastinated faces and torsos.
  • All player deaths are depicted as horrific, usually in the form of the Protagonist's face getting torn off, with the occasional vertical bisection.
• Body of Bodies: Legion, which can be encountered near the end of the game depending on the route taken. As Protagonist flees the museum he eventually stumbles onto an enormous reanimated pile of corpses which manifest tendrils comprised of the bodies which were meant to be used as an art piece. The conspirators planned to add the museum visitors (and possibly all of the citizens of the United States) to it, and in one of the endings the Protagonist is used as its centrepiece.
• Caught Monologuing: In Ending A, after the ritual is stopped and Daniel is defeated, the Council members will corner the protagonist, and the leader gives them a speech about how much trouble they've caused. The Council leader doesn't notice Connie smashing in their heads one by one until he turns around and gets Killed Mid-Sentence.
• Collapsing Lair: In Ending A, the Roanoke Museum's underground sections get sucked into the otherworldly portal as a side effect of Albert's White Magic ritual. This ultimately causes several sections of the museum to collapse, save for the main section, which instead becomes a structurally unstable ruined husk.
• Corpse-Strewn Lair: The Roanoke Museum is home to Daniel, the museum's head of security and night watchman who lives and works there full time. It just so happens to be the home of a notably large human anatomy exhibit containing dozens of plasticized corpses put up on display. As it turns out, many of these corpses were from people that Daniel, and his bosses The Council, had killed and then resurrected as zombies via Black Magic. And not only that, but the deepest sections of the museum house hundreds more corpses, several of which are already zombies.
• Creator Cross-References: The Fallout Shelter contains a pinball machine of Teebowah Games' previous title Fishing Vacation.
• Crowbar Combatant: Downplayed. The Protagonist can't use the crowbar he obtains to fight and kill the zombies he encounters, with him instead relying on a taser that he obtains from Albert. He can however use the crowbar to attack Daniel during the ending, using it to disarm the old man of his handgun.
• Dead Guy on Display: The human anatomy section of the Roanoke Museum is an entire section of dissected plastinated cadavers put up for display, with their purpose to serve as human anatomical models. It's revealed a short while later that some of these corpses are actually Ax-Crazy zombies. Ending A reveals that almost all of the displays are, in fact, alive, sans the skeletal system display, which remains motionless.
• The Dead Can Dance: One of them can, at any rate. The History Exhibit is home to a zombie who'll gladly pirouette, jig, and twirl around with you - after tearing your head off, naturally.
• The Dead Have Eyes: All of the shambling undead monstrosities antagonizing the player, Connie, and Albert have intact eyes. Justified in-universe by the zombies being cadavers preserved through the plastination process.
• Dem Bones: Averted Trope, surprisingly. The skeletal system display located within the human anatomy section of the Roanoke Museum never comes to life, tries to escape it's confinement, or attempt to chase the Protagonist.
• Dragon-in-Chief:
  • Daniel is the head of security of the Roanoke Museum, the one in charge of ensuring the conspiracy remains undetected, and boosting the numbers of undead needed for the Evil Plan to succeed. But it's revealed during Ending B that he's subservient to The Council, who are the real brains behind the operations at the museum.
  • During Ending B, the Protagonist becomes the new head of security for the Council after being killed and resurrected as an Elite Zombie.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: In Ending B, the now undead and immortal Protagonist takes glee in his newfound powers and position, and promptly begins arrangements to unleash the Zombie Apocalypse on the rest of the United States.
• Eerie Anatomy Model: The human anatomy exhibits in the Roanoke Museum. Not only are they plastinated cadavers of real people, but they're also Ax-Crazy undead monstrosities that will brutally maul to death any living human in sight.
• Elite Zombie:
  • The Council. Unlike most of the reanimated cadavers in the museum (who are limited to either Ax-Crazy violence or mindlessly happy violence,) the Council can think for themselves and plan in the long-term for their Ancient Conspiracy.
  • Daniel is revealed to be a zombie in Ending C. Despite being a frail old man, a direct crowbar swing to his head and the resulting gash to his face has virtually no effect on him. And, like his bosses The Council, he's capable of independent thought, reasoning, and long-term planning.
  • The Protagonist himself becomes one in Ending B, with him having been forcibly killed, resurrected, and given the same abilities as his predecessor Daniel.
• Evil Old Folks: Daniel, a man who is presumably in his 70s or 80s is revealed to be a nefarious conspirator who won't hesitate to murder his employees for knowing about the true nature of the Roanoke Museum.
• Evil Laugh: Many of the zombies encountered love to laugh hysterically as they pursue, grab, and try to kill the Protagonist, Connie, and Albert.
• Evil Smells Bad: Several noxious odors are noted to be found within the Roanoke Museum.
  • The display corpses and zombies found within the museum are noted by various characters to produce an awful synthetic chemical odor, one of the side effects of the plastination process that creates them.
  • The museum's basement section, housing hundreds of corpses both plastinated and decomposing, is noted to be an awful mix of the smell of rotting flesh and the aforementioned synthetic chemical odor. Said basement is used for the practice of Black Magic rituals intended to create more Voodoo Zombies for the Council's Evil Plan.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Excluding the "Three Weeks Later..." Time Skip in some of the endings, the game's story takes place over the course of a single night.
• Face–Heel Turn: Ending B has the Protagonist undergo one offscreen as a reward for defeating and killing Daniel, with the former fully embracing his newfound immortality and power.
• Facial Horror: Most of the zombies attempting to kill the Protagonist have their faces surgically grafted off, gruesomely revealing their bones, muscles, nerves, brains, teeth, tongue etc. Worse, each of the quick time events involving breaking free from the zombies' grasps shows their faces in very fine detail.
• Faux Affably Evil: Daniel at first gives off a welcoming, grandfatherly vibe, provides useful advice to the Protagonist, and even pays him reasonably well despite clocking out and leaving early in Ending E. In reality, his niceness is all an act, as he's in actuality a Bad Boss who's had several of his employees as well as other innocent civilians killed, and is the Dragon-in-Chief to an Ancient Conspiracy that desires to unleash a Zombie Apocalypse on the United States.
• Foreshadowing: Early on in the game, while exploring the human anatomy section of the museum, the Protagonist can stumble onto posters teasing the upcoming reveal of an art piece called Legion, and exploring one of the rooms he can stumble onto crates with body parts sticking out of them. Near the end of one route it springs to life and attacks him, and in another ending he's added to it (and museum visitors are implied to be suffering the same fate very soon).
• From Bad to Worse: Downplayed; in the Ending A route, the Protagonist shuts down the portal and Connie helps him escape by stalling the Council members. While he's been dealing with zombies all night, most of the Body section's exhibits were motionless. However, as Protagonist escapes through that section all of the exhibits are alive (sans the Skeletal System, which remains motionless), still enclosed in their cases and screaming while trying to break out as all Hell breaks loose, with only the Legion and "Splitty" successfully breaking out and posing a threat to the Protagonist before he can escape to safety. Even the corpses in the Plastination section begin rising off of their slabs, with the sheets still covering them.
• Full-Frontal Assault: All of the zombies are encountered in a state of undress, and will pursue, grab, and maul the player to death while in that state. This includes the entirety of the Council, who confront the Protagonist fully nude (although Mama Jo at least has some decency to cover her breasts with her crossed arms).
• Giggling Villain: A number of zombies make laughing noises as they chase after the protagonist. This is handy as it allows the player to know if there's one in the vicinity.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Council, who are an Ancient Conspiracy composed of undead members who plan to unleash a Zombie Apocalypse on Roanoke Island and potentially the rest of the United States. Daniel ultimately answers to them.
• Half the Man He Used to Be:
  • Some of the zombies will choose to kill the Protagonist this way, specifically by vertically bisecting him with their bare hands.
  • The final zombie encountered in the Ending A route is two halves of the same vertically bisected corpse, managing to move rather quickly despite its current situation. It's also one of the zombies that will inflict this fate on the protagonist if it manages to kill him.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The Protagonist in unnamed by default, with the player instead given the task of assigning a name to him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Two of them happen during Ending A.
  • Albert the janitor chooses to let himself go and get sucked into a portal in order to allow the Protagonist to survive the Collapsing Lair around them.
  • Connie saves the protagonist from the undead head conspirators personally, then decides to Hold the Line so that the protagonist can escape, thus presumably dying when the Roanoke museum collapses on top of them.
• Human All Along: Inverted Trope with Daniel. For most of the late game, it seems that he's the Token Human member of the Council, but Endings A and B reveal that he's actually an Elite Zombie capable of independent thought, speech, and reasoning, as swinging the crowbar and gashing his face has no effect on him whatsoever.
• Giant Mook: The Roanoke Exhibit is home to a zombie about twice the Protagonist's height, partly because its limbs are grotesequely thin and elongated.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: By the late game of Endings A, B, and C, the Protagonist has a personal stake against Daniel during their final confrontation, rather than with The Council, mostly because the former mistreated him, repeatedly lied to him, and tried to have him killed numerous times.
• Kaizo Trap: After Daniel and the Council are defeated on the Ending A route, it's still not over yet, as the Protagonist has to escape the crumbling museum. On the way out, there are still threats that can kill them, including tentacles made of several bodies, and a zombie that's been mostly vertically bisected.
• Land Shark: The zombified Bertha becomes one during her ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of the Protagonist, using the legs of the zombies she consumed as mobility.
• Magical Native American: Albert, who is Native American, a descendant of the Croatoan People, and has knowledge of White Magic rituals as well as the supernatural events taking place in the region.
• The Many Deaths of You: This game features several gruesome ways for the Protagonist to be killed, all of them brutally. These can range from having his face torn off, to getting vertically bisected, electrocuted, eaten by a shark, and even getting mauled to death by a zombie hiding in his car's own backseat.
• Menacing Museum: The Roanoke Museum seems like an ordinary museum during the day, housing various exhibits on history and biology. In truth, it's the headquarters of an Ancient Conspiracy involving a group of intelligent undead intent on unleashing a Zombie Apocalypse on the rest of the United States.
• Multiple Endings: Depending on the actions you take, the Protagonist can stop a potential Zombie Apocalypse, die horribly, or make a Face–Heel Turn and be in on a massive Ancient Conspiracy.
  • Ending A, aka the True Ending.: The Protagonist saves Albert and Connie from the zombies, allowing them to help him in stopping the Zombie Apocalypse for good at the cost of their lives. Daniel also ends up killed by the Protagonist during a final confrontation, and the Conspiracy's head honchos are presumably killed by the collapsing museum after Connie stalls them. The game ends with the Protagonist alive, driving away from Roanoke island to live another day. Fulfilling certain requirements extends the ending, where the player finds a package with a recording inside on their front door. When they play it on their television, a video of Albert plays telling the player that their work is far from over.
  • Ending B: The Protagonist fails to save Connie beforehand. Albert and The Protagonist destroy the ritual set up by The Council at the cost of the former's life, with The Protagonist confronting and killing Daniel much like in Ending A. However, without Connie to ambush and maul them, the Council Heads manage to corner The Protagonist and "convince" him to take up their new job offer. A few weeks later, the Council Heads decide to push through with their Evil Plan of unleashing a Zombie Apocalypse... with a now loyal Protagonist as their new Dragon-in-Chief, having performed a Face–Heel Turn offscreen.
  • Ending C: Can happen regardless of whether the Protagonist saves Connie or not. During the final confrontation, Daniel holds the Protagonist at gunpoint as revenge for thwarting the Council's Evil Plan. This ending is specifically triggered should the Protagonist bash Daniel in the face, attempts to use the taser on him without disarming him, or if Daniel knows that the Protagonist has a crowbar (if the player used it in an area with surveillance), resulting in Daniel shooting the Protagonist dead, and turning him into interior decorations for a television. Daniel then continues working on the Conspiracy's Evil Plan while watching local news.
  • Ending D: The Protagonist accidentally aids Daniel in the Council's Evil Plan. His reward from Daniel is a promotion, i.e. being turned into a centerpiece exhibit in the human anatomy section of the museum. Much like all the other zombies, the Protagonist's corpse is revealed to be alive, albeit as a nervous system strapped onto a glass display rather than an intact dissected corpse like most of the others.
  • Ending E: The Protagonist locks Connie in the employee lounge where he finds her, on Daniel's orders to find intruders. As a reward for his service, Daniel hands the Protagonist a full paycheck and bonus, and even tells the former that his services are no longer required now that the troublemakers have been caught. Three weeks following this, the Zombie Apocalypse begins, with innocent civilians being led into the fallout shelter of the Roanoke Museum to be used as additional "recruits" for the undead army. Seeing this, the Protagonist refuses to go back to the museum, knowing that it's nothing but trouble. Unfortunately for him, the zombies have already reached his hometown, and the game ends right as several of the zombies enter his home to maul him to death.
  • Ending F: The Protagonist, following a near-death experience with the first zombie, decides to quit on the spot. Daniel tries to convince him otherwise, but the Protagonist says that he never signed up for any life-threatening situations. Ultimately, Daniel lets the Protagonist leave, albeit without getting paid due to him not finishing his shift. As the Protagonist drives out of Roanoke Island, a zombie is revealed to have hid itself in the backseat of his car, and promptly ambushes and presumably mauls him to death.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The zombies' true purpose is to serve as Mooks for Daniel's and the Council's Evil Plan of taking over the United States via Zombie Apocalypse.
• No OSHA Compliance: A note found on one of the PCs in the Aquarium section details the incident when one of the workers was devoured by Bertha and how other employees were protesting the lax safety measures that lead to their colleague's death, with whoever wrote the note stating they'll be making a list of "liabilities". Given who runs the museum....Those lax safety measures may have been a deliberate choice, and those "liabilities" were likely killed and turned into zombies rather than fired...
• Non-Action Big Bad: Downplayed with Daniel, on account of being an old man. He relies on a cane when needing to walk, is physically weak and thus cannot swing punches, and has to rely on the hordes of zombies under his beck and whim to carry out his Evil Plan. He can, however, wield a handgun, and can and will shoot the Protagonist dead in Ending C if the Protagonist makes the wrong moves and choices. Should the Protagonist disarm him, however, he'll be unable to fight back and can easily be dispatched with the taser due to actually being an Elite Zombie.
• Non-Action Guy: The Protagonist is ultimately this. Being an Unlucky Everydude, he has no combat training whatsoever, has no experience with firearms, and can't even swing a crowbar around to save himself. The only weapon he can reliably use is a taser that he receives from Albert, and even then can only use it when it has sufficient electrical charge.
• Off with His Head!: The dancing zombie in the History Exhibit's death scene involves it pulling the protagonist's head mostly off, such that it's left flopping around by the spine.
  • This is how Connie deals with the leader of the Council when he confronts the Protagonist in Ending A route, smacking his head clean off his shoulders with the baseball bat.
• One-Woman Wail: In the Cultural History section, the player may hear wailing that changes in volume depending on their location; it's produced by the dancing zombie woman that haunts that particular area and the wailing is a good indicator to guess where she might be.^note But not exactly an indicator of whether she will attack you or not; she'll sometimes show up even without making any noise, and sometimes you can repeatedly pass through an area where her wailing is the loudest without her ever showing up.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The zombies infesting the Roanoke Museum are created via plastination and a magic ritual rather than from a virus. They're also able to talk, albeit in the form of nonsensically ranting rather than anything coherent. And getting bitten or mauled to death by a zombie does not turn humans into a zombie, with the dead human instead having to go through the same plastination and magic ritual.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: As Ending B reveals, the Council, while willing to either inhabit the bodies of African-Americans as well as White Americans, or alternatively welcome the former into their circle, absolutely look down on Native Americans, referring to them as "savages". Justified Trope, as Native American rituals can counter their use of Black Magic. It also probably doesn't help that they're Really Seven Hundred Years Old.
• Possessing a Dead Body: The Council, and other ancient spirits they summon, use bodies as vessels to control and transfer themselves between, exhibiting a different kind of reanimation than the mindless undead usually encountered in the museum.
• Press X to Die: You can touch the empty fuse socket in the fuse box… the result is very predictable. Most notably this is the only way to die that doesn’t involve anything supernatural at all.
• Raising the Steaks: Bertha the shark, after consuming two zombies pursuing the Protagonist, becomes an undead zombified monstrosity herself, and attempts to kill the player by breaking out of her shark tank and pursuing them using the zombies' legs.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: The Council's plot has been ongoing since 1587; while the exact timing of the game's events is unstated^note although some notes found on computers are dated as being written in 1995., this makes them roughly four or so centuries old.
• Red Herring: Early on in the game, close to the entrance of the Bodies exhibit there are several displays that show different layers of human body with the skeletal one being the last. Passing by it after an encounter with the first zombie causes it's jaw to fall off, seemingly to foreshadow that it may spring to life eventually. It never does. Escaping through this section in Ending A route reveals that all corpses in the Bodies exhibit have sprung to life except for the skeleton.
• Retraux: The game's artstyle and gameplay were deliberately made to evoke the Game Boy games of the late eighties and early nineties.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Ending F. After his first encounter with an undead cadaver, the Protagonist ultimately chooses to quit his job mid-shift, telling Daniel outright that he'll have none of it. Daniel allows him to walk off into the night, albeit without his pay. And then a zombie ambushes them while driving and presumably mauls them to death.
• Shout-Out:
  • In the end scene with the portal sucking things up, you can watch as the camera gets sucked in... It's a bit of an homage to Occult by Kōji Shiraishi.
  • An undead shark pursuing humans on dry land? Are we talking about the zombified Bertha or the infamous Land Shark from Gyo?
• Slasher Smile: The default expression of most of the zombies is a sinister smile, reflecting their Ax-Crazy behavior.
• Spoiler Cover: Downplayed. The game's cover art features a fully intact brain and nervous system that is presumably propped up for display, which fits and wouldn't look out of place with the Roanoke Museum's human anatomy section. However, as Ending D reveals, that nervous system is actually the Protagonist himself, still alive, fully aware, and bound to the display and unable to move.
• Spooky Photographs: Taking a photo at the booth in the Bodies section and looking at it shows a distorted, creepy face behind the body prop and Protagonist which also foreshadows the true cause of the plastinated bodies coming to life and attacking him; they're possessed by the spirits summoned through the portal by the Council members.
• Static Screw: Since most of the action in the game is viewed through security cameras, sudden appearance of static interference is used to signal to the player that there's a supernatural occurrence going on in that particular area, meaning that one of the zombies may be nearby...or not.
• Static Stun Gun: The only effective weapon available to the Protagonist is the Taser that he receives from Albert. However, said Taser ultimately proves useful, as zombies suffer from a Taser Tag Weakness.
• Taser Tag Weakness: As it turns out, the zombies are weak to electric shocks, including those from tasers. Justified Trope, due to electrical charges being able to sever the effects of the Black Magic ritual that allows the zombies to function, plus the plastination keeping their nervous system mostly intact means they still have nerves to paralyze.
• Tear Off Your Face: A number of deaths involve the zombies tearing off the protagonist's face in some manner.
• Threatening Shark: Bertha, a great white shark found in the museum's Aquarium section, is noted to have consumed some of the previous workers at the museum by accident during feeding. Later, she consumes two of the zombies pursuing the Protagonist, only to be Killed Offscreen from presumably choking or getting poisoned to death from eating their plasticized bodies. She then becomes a zombie shark that can walk on land, and pursues the Protagonist, presumably under the zombies' influence.
• Uncertain Doom: Connie in Ending A. She manages to maul all of the Council members' heads in or off and save the Protagonist from a horrible fate. Rather than leave with the Protagonist, however, she chooses to hold off the undead horde by herself, assuring to him that she'll catch up. She never does, as she's not seen in the credits or epilogue. Though given that she's survived multiple assaults from dozens of zombies, as well as the fact that the museum's main building was still relatively intact when the Protagonist drove off, there's still a chance that she might have survived and escaped later on.
• The Unintelligible: While most of the zombies are vocal (if insane and incoherent), some zombies in the Fallout Shelter are plasticated such that their head is bisected vertically, leaving them with half a mouth, nose, et cetera. They 'speak' entirely by making a sort of gasping, choking noise due to lacking enough of a face to actually talk.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Daniel is revealed to be this in Ending D. The Protagonist willingly sides with him in finalizing the Black Magic ritual to begin the Zombie Apocalypse. Upon completing said ritual, Daniel thanks the Protagonist and rewards him with a promotion. You'd think the Protagonist would get to be a part of the Conspiracy, right? Wrong. Instead, Daniel has the zombies kill the Protagonist, strip his body parts down, and turn him, resurrected and fully aware, into a centrepiece exhibit in the museum's human anatomy section.
• Unlucky Everydude: The Protagonist is established early on to be an ordinary, unremarkable person who happens to be down on his luck, needing additional money in order to pay his rent and bills. Thus why he agrees to work as a night watchman at the Roanoke Museum.
• Video Game Caring Potential: It's possible to save Connie and/or Albert instead of leaving them to their deaths. Saving them is also a requirement for Ending A, as Albert is able to stop the ritual with White Magic, while Connie takes out the Council from behind as they corner the protagonist.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ending A has The Council members personally confront the Protagonist, with their leader clearly pissed off that their Evil Plan is in shambles, and that he will pay for it. Unfortunately for him and his fellow Council members, Connie promptly appears and bashes their heads.
• Villain Respect: Ending B. Without Connie to aid the Protagonist in escaping the Roanoke Museum, the Council are pleased at the Protagonist's determination and skills in avoiding getting himself killed, as well as his outwitting and defeat of their Dragon-in-Chief Daniel. Rather than have the zombie horde maul the Protagonist to death, the Council leader instead decides to, forcibly, offer him a promotion and a position within the Council.
• Voodoo Zombie: The zombies that infest the Roanoke Museum are revealed to be the result of using a Black Magic ritual on plastinated corpses, resulting in an Ax-Crazy shambling undead monstrosity that kills anyone on sight.
• White Magic: Utilized by Albert in the Ending A route to close the portal that the Council was using to summon the spirits they would use to reanimate the plastinated corpses inside the museum. While it does successfully close that portal...it also opens an entirely different one almost immediately after, which sucks him in and causes most of the museum to collapse.^note Although the secret ending shows Albert survived the experience as he contacts the Protagonist from wherever he wound up.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Ending D has Daniel ordering the zombie horde to kill and strip down the Protagonist's body parts, presumably due to him knowing too much about the entire conspiracy.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Ending B. The Protagonist succeeds in killing Daniel, the head of security and the Dragon-in-Chief of the Conspiracy, but he fails to take out The Council, who promptly "convince" him to take Daniel's place and position. As shown in the epilogue for that ending, the Protagonist ultimately embraces and willingly decides to become evil.
• You Meddling Kids: In Ending A, when the Council corners the protagonist, the leader expresses anger over the player's ruining of his plan, calling him a snot-nosed punk. He doesn't get to finish his sentence before Connie whacks his head off.
  Council leader: You've done a great deal of damage to our operation. For years, we've operated in the shadows since the year of our founder 1587. We're not about to let some snot-nosed punk ruin all we've bui-
• Zombie Apocalypse: The entire Ancient Conspiracy's ultimate goal of their Evil Plan: to unleash an undead horde to presumably take over the United States. In Endings B, C, D, E, and presumably F, they succeed in doing so.