Video Game / Undying

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Undying is a Survival Horror Video Game by Vanimals.

For four months now, a Zombie Apocalypse has been in full swing. The military has been keeping survivors in subway stations converted into refugee camps, which they'll extract from until the area's clear of uninfected.

Anling and her son Cody are two people living in one such camp, and today, they're scheduled to be extracted. However, during the evacuation, the tunnel collapses, bringing with it a group of zombies. One lunges for Cody, but Anling saves him in time, at the cost of being bitten by it. They manage to escape and make it home, but now Anling is infected, meaning that she'll be one of them pretty soon.

Anling will have to do everything she can to protect Cody, keep him alive and safe, and ensure he can look after himself when she no longer can.

The game was released into Steam Early Access on October 19th, 2021, and "graduated" into its full retail version on December 7th, 2023.

Not to be confused with Clive Barker's Undying.

Undying contains examples of:

• After the End: The game explicitly stated that it's been 4 months since the zombie outbreak during The '90s.
• Ambiguous Ending: "Residual Heat" ending has both Anling and Cody manages to catch up to the evacuation helicopter as the former's infection seemingly reaching its peak and coughing upon arrival with Cody being worried for her, but nothing else shown what happened to her afterward.
• Ambiguously Jewish: Cody was supposed to receive a football with a gun inside it from his father, Jacob as a gift for his "bar mitzvah", which might imply that the two of them are Jewish. However, even if that is the case, Cody may not be considered as such by all denominations as Judaism is traditionally traced matrilineally and Anling is explicitly Chinese Buddhist (seeing as she regularly prays at the Buddhist shrine in her house, even acting as a save point mechanic).
  • Regardless, to have had a 'bar mitzvah' kid had to go to Hebrew school, practice part of the Torrah, and recite it. Which likely means he was likely at least nominally associated with a Temple that's cool with Anling being Chinese?? (she says at the start she never really used the shrine much before being bitten, so she may be more 'culturally spiritual' than observant Buddhist?)
• Apocalyptic Log: Letters and Newspapers can tell you about things that have happened before.
• Batter Up!: You can make and use a baseball bat to battle the undead.
• Chekhov's Gun: The gun that Cody received from his father after Anling consents him to own it, with one bullet loaded within. Depending on the chosen path, Cody could either use it against Wily to protect his mother, or shoot her with it when she's fully zombified.
• Crowbar Combatant: Crowbars are another weapons Anling and Cody can wield against the undead.
• Disappeared Dad: It can take a while to find out what happened to Anling's husband and Cody's father unless you explore the abandoned subway station in the city. Jacob Moore was asked to help the evacuation effort due to being a doctor, and stepped away from his family's camp in the middle of the night. That was the last time they saw him.
• Disaster Scavengers: Anling and Cody will need to scour the game world for items to help them survive.
• Doomed Protagonist: Given she's infected by the start of the game, Anling has her time running short before she will inevitably become a zombie. However, due to her love for her son, she could either persist and stay sane through the infection until she is able to get Cody to safety, or she may become "half-turned" where she is still protective toward her son despite being mentally a zombie as long as Cody keeps playing the harmonica to calm her down until Anling fully loses herself and becomes unable to recognize Cody anymore by the ending.
• Eyeless Face: None of the characters in the game have any eyes.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Tranquil, Adventure, and Fierce. All three have a brief description about the difficulty.
• Item Crafting: Anling and Cody can craft items out of things they finds in the world, which includes weapons and tools.
• Multiple Endings: The game has multiple endings that branched out whenever Anling decided to persist through her zombie infection or succumb to it.
• No Mouth: The character models of everyone in the game don't have mouths. The only exception is when the speaking images appear during conversations.
• One-Word Title: Undying, of course.
• Swapped Roles: For most of the game, you play as Anling and Cody is the support character that you need to take care of and teach multiple survival skills including combats in order to survive the harsh environment. However, if Anling succumbs to the virus, Cody will take over as the playable character while Anling will turn into a half-zombie that Cody needs to take care of as she becomes a support character that can only mindlessly scramble around and attack other zombies who tries to harm Cody, with the latter occasionally needing to play the harmonica to calm her down whenever she starts to become hostile.
• The Power of Love: It's implied that her love for her son is what made Anling able to persist through her infection and slowly prevent herself from turning into a zombie. Even if she does succumb to the virus, she's only "half-turned" where Anling still protective toward Cody despite no longer truly being conscious and attacking other zombies who tries to harm him, as long as Cody is able to keep her calm by playing the harmonica.
• Together in Death: More specifically, together in undead. "Extinguish" ending has Cody simply playing the harmonica one last time to calm down the now-fully zombified Anling as she approaches and finishes him off. And by the time of the ending screen, the two are scrambling together as zombies with their shadows embracing each other, seemingly reunited at last.
• Undeathly Pallor: The zombies in the game have green skin. Anling's skin is also seen turning green in "Residual Heat" ending.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: If either Anling or Cody dies during the gameplay, it's an instant Game Over.
• You Have Researched Breathing:
  • Cody cannot open storage containers until he's taught how to do so. Note that teaching this and allowing him to do this will eventually have him learn perks that let him find hidden objects.
  • You need an unlockable perk before Cody has a chance to pee on newly planted, dry plants. Parents of small children can tell you that they don't need an accolade to piss on things. In the game's defense, when fully leveled up this will reduce your farming's water usage by an impressive 50%.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Anling only has around one to two in-game months before she succumbs to the virus, with her body occasionally gaining new symptoms as the days continue to pass by. Furthermore, if you decide to help Anling persist through her infection, she will only have 5 days left to get Cody to evacuate before she is fully consumed by the virus.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Most definitely, what with all the zombies in the game.