New Daymare: 1998 Gameplay Showcases Various New Mechanics

Recently, Invader Studios uploaded several short clips showcasing various mechanics of their upcoming zombie survival horror, Daymare: 1998. For the uninformed, Daymare actually used to exist as a fan-made Resident Evil 2 remake, although such endeavors were brought to a halt once Capcom finally decided to step in and make it themselves.

In these videos, we get to see how to combine healing items (it’s practically the same as Resident Evil), how reloading in Daymare works (it’s actually a bit different from Resident Evil), as well a ‘hacking minigame’ that will enable players to bypass locked doors. Additionally, we can pick up can pick on various little new gameplay details strewn throughout each upload, one of which is the inventory menu that H.A.D.E.S will be using and I personally think it looks beautiful. We also now know that there may be quick time events upon being grappled by zombies. Furthermore, as demonstrated in one of the ‘instructional reloading videos’ (the most informative of the bunch), we see an attacking zombie shot in the leg by the player, causing the limb to get blown off and the zombie to fall over. This to me suggests that enemies will react differently to some extent depending on how and where they are attacked, which I think is a nice little detail that may add some extra level of strategy if the concept is implemented properly.

In the instructional reloading videos, we see that reloading works a bit differently from early Resident Evil game, namely that the ammo itself has to be loaded into magazines, and that the magazines themselves still take up inventory space. As we can see demonstrated, in tense situations, such as an attacking zombie, a magazine can be dropped as a trade-off for a faster reload time. In addition to creating an extra layer of item management, I suspect that multiple magazines can be utilized for various different ammo types with varying properties but only time will tell.

Daymare: 1998 is set to release sometime this year on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Steam. In the meantime, you can check out the game’s official Steam page, or you can check out all the recent uploads for yourself here.