Undead Chronicles isn’t shaping up to be ‘just another zombie shooter’. It’s a very deliberate stab at a fresh direction in the zombie-survival space, and it’s challenging the paradigm set by today’s titles. Seyfhouse Games is building something much colder, creepier, and slower than you might be used to, but it’s a perfect representation of what we should expect from the zombie apocalypse.
This is what horror should actually feel like. No cheeky quips, no three-phase mutants, and no sprawling, complex skill trees to manage. I recently sat down with Seyfettin Dincturk, the solo developer behind Undead Chronicles, to learn about the philosophy, the world, and the honest humanity at the heart of this genuinely intriguing indie horror game.
As a bonus, I can recommend checking out the new Undead Chronicles trailer that aired during the recent 28 Games Later Showcase.
Returning to Horror’s Roots
I asked Seyfettin why Undead Chronicles exists, and he didn’t beat around the bush:
Honestly, the main reason was to make the game I wanted to play.
He argues that, over time, the genre has drifted too far from its recognizable foundations. These zombie-survival games have become over-the-top action-adventure games that prioritize bloat over many other things to make $70 price tags seem justifiable. Undead Chronicles is the antithesis of all of that:
What if you made a horror walking sim with satisfying gunplay against slow zombies, and a protagonist who doesn’t joke once?
It’s not revolutionary, Seyfettin admitted, but it’s a game that seems to be strangely absent from today’s market, and it’s a risk he’s willing to take to bring it to life.
The setting is where the differentiation begins. We’re not in New York or London or any number of typical locations in Undead Chronicles, but we’re in Istanbul in 1923.
When I was a student I used to visit family in Istanbul every summer.
I always told myself this could be an incredible location for a game.
And the timeline facilitated the evolution of that concept further. In 1923, the Allied occupation of Istanbul is coming to an end, the city is in the throes of a political collapse, and there are remnants of a military operation across the entire region. Add a zombie outbreak on top of that, and you’ve got a perfect storm.
Undead Chronicles Deserves Attention
Seyfettin argued that most modern zombie games have locations and themes that are very interchangeable. By that, he means that you can play one, and then another, and a third, and they might all feel like the same thing. He has stressed that the uniqueness of the game has allowed it to garner traction in the wishlist space, and earlier this year, he announced a 100,000 wishlist milestone.
That’s incredible, considering how low-budget the game is, and that naturally stretches Seyfettin’s marketing capabilities.
The project is fully self-funded from my own savings.
And it’s not just a one-and-done game, either. If all goes well, Undead Chronicles has been conceived as a saga. That’s what Seyfettin told me when we chatted:
We designed Undead Chronicles as a trilogy from day one.
The first game is just the introduction to the world and the protagonist, RJ Edwards. This is where Seyfettin thinks most players will have their interest piqued, as Edwards isn’t some rippling one-man-army with the innate ability to slaughter the undead left, right, and centre:
You are RJ Edwards, a shy, regular, relatable British banker. Not a soldier, not a hero – one of us.
We let the player fight back… but we do not let you feel powerful doing it.
In short, every action you make in Undead Chronicles must be thought out. Every shot bears weight, reloads are intense and fumbled, and enemies are relentless. Again, Seyfettin repeated his tagline for the game, which was the same three words that attracted me to this game in the first place, several months ago:
It’s creepy, depressive, and miserable.
But there’s also depth to Undead Chronicles. I learned that the core concepts run deeper than ‘just survival’, and that the entire thing is being kept very grounded. You’ll be able to uncover radio broadcasts, notes, letters, and other envrionmenbtal storytelling elemetns that help you paint a picture of what has happened to Istanbul.
And it all comes down to RJ Edwards’ principal mission, which Seyfettin outlined:
He is just trying to get out of the city and get home.
Undead Chronicles is shaping up to be something special. If you want, you can wishlist it on Steam and join the Insider Gaming Discord server to let us know if you’re interested in this game.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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