DEADWAVE

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Latest news

• Patch Notes·28 Jul 2026Official

  Update: New Undead Roster & Horde Performance

  Firstly, thanks for playing the game especially those few who played it for hours. I love you ❤️ Secondly, I have received a few feedback since the launch which has shaped this update. Hope it makes your experience better. Focus on this one has been mostly on AI optimization and reduce the grind for opening new maps. The next update would probably be characters special ability system which still needs some more testing and adjustments. Here is the update you have received today: PER-ROUND ENEMY SPAWNING Dynamic Waves: Each enemy type now has its own round range, so waves evolve as you survive instead of pulling from one flat pool all match long. Scaling Difficulty: Early rounds stay readable, mid-rounds introduce faster and tougher undead, and late rounds bring out the heavy hitters. Map-Specific Tuning: Every Zombie Survival map (Graveyard, Egypt, Asian Temple, Ancient Ruins, Lost Ruins, and Endless) has been re-tuned with its own per-round enemy mix. Endless Mode: Inherits the same progression and keeps escalating as the round counter climbs. HORDE PERFORMANCE AI Optimization:Major optimization pass on zombie AI and movement. Zombie-to-zombie AI sight checks no longer scale quadratically with horde size — the single biggest CPU cost in large waves. Movement Efficiency: Distant zombies now use a cheaper movement mode, skip per-frame floor and bounds calculations, and no longer process collision overlap events. Corpse & UI Cleanup: Corpses freeze their movement simulation, and health bars hide immediately on death instead of lingering. Performance Gains: Internal testing runs 100–150 simultaneous zombies smoothly, where framerates previously started degrading past 60. PROGRESSION Reduced Grind: Lowered unlock levels for maps and playable characters across the board — far less grinding before you can access the full content. Thanks for playing DEADWAVE. Bug reports and feedback are always welcome!
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• Patch Notes·30 Jun 2026Official

  Patch Notes: Wave Composition System

  Each map now runs a fully designed enemy schedule. Instead of the same enemy mix every round, each wave introduces, rotates, and retires specific enemy types as the round number climbs. Early rounds are intentionally simpler to ease players in; mid-game mixes faster and tougher variants; late rounds throw the full roster at you simultaneously. This change affects all maps in Zombie Survival and Endless Horde. Have Fun :)
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• Patch Notes·24 Jun 2026Official

  Hotfix Patch Notes

  A small hotfix is now live thanks to your feedback, focused on zombie difficulty tuning and controller support. Zombie Balance Zombies are now slower and hit a bit softer across the board combat should feel fairer, especially in the early rounds. Fixed a difficulty bug where many zombies ignored the selected difficulty and ran at full speed regardless. Difficulty (including Easy) now applies consistently to every zombie. Default difficulty is now set to Easy for new players. Controls & Input Reworked gamepad input for smoother, more responsive aiming and movement. Added an Invert Axis option. Added gamepad bindings for Skip Round Countdown, Quit, and Show Scoreboard. Display Added a Window Mode setting; the game now defaults to Windowed Fullscreen. Fixes Fixed the issue with fog on Ancient Ruins map (Level 1). Replaced with a gentler fog that will show up later in the game and stays shorter. Thanks for the feedback, Keep them coming.
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• Announcements·23 Jun 2026Official

  DEADWAVE is out!

  It's finally here.I cannot believe I'm writing this. When I started, it was a learning project, now it's a published game. Somewhere along the way, when I started making a zombie to learn the AI system, it became something real and seeing people actually play it during Next Fest, leave feedback, engage and join the journey has meant more to me than I can put into words.Thank you. To everyone who played, wishlisted, tested the game, provided feedback, reported bugs or helped me with ideas and going to play the full game. We actually reached 1000 wishlists before launch which were it's own milestone. You are the reason and motiviation that the game is where it's today. I do not have a QA team, you are my QA team. I'm one person. I made this game on my own, which means it won't be perfect. There will be bugs I missed and things I can improve. But here's my promise: I'm going to keep supporting DEADWAVE for as long as people are playing it and reporting the issues back to me. If you run into issues, have ideas, or just want to tell me what you think, please reach out. Join Discord👉 The best place to reach me is the Discord, I read and respond there myself. Join discord here: https://discord.com/invite/STkT4r2FJDThis is the beginning, not the end. I'll see you in the waves. 🧟Have fun, Mr. Firewall Developer
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• Patch Notes·18 Jun 2026Official

  Patch Notes

  Gameplay Improvements & ChangesNew ContentTutorial mode added. A guided onboarding experience to teach core mechanics to new players, with first-launch detection so newcomers are pointed to it automatically.Endless Horde game mode. Survive an uncapped onslaught of zombies, with leaderboard integration to track your best runs.Mystery Crate. A new random weapon box for Zombie Survival featuring a skill-check mechanic and weapon-roll rewards. Crate spawns have been placed across the maps, with configurable settings and new cosmetics.Weapon Buff Station. A new interactable station that lets you enhance weapon damage, added to the zombie maps including demo. Zombie SurvivalHost difficulty selector. The host can now choose the difficulty for Zombie Survival matches.Player-count difficulty scaling. Zombie difficulty now adapts based on the number of players in the session.Boss-sparing option during Nuke. Added an option to spare boss zombies when a Nuke is triggered.Round count restored to 20.Smarter zombie movement. Zombies now recover from getting stuck via steer-around, nudge, and teleport behaviors, reducing cases of stuck or idle enemies.Upgrades & BuffsUpgrade reset functionality added, with tier-based health/shield retrieval so your stats are restored correctly per tier.UI & SettingsImproved Zombie Health Widget visuals.New infection VFX for clearer feedback when infected.Object highlight toggle added to settings, letting you turn intractable highlights on or off.Host & Join flow reworked in the menu widgets.Balancing & MapsGeneral balancing over weapons, zombies, infection, etc. Map and price adjustments.Map polish, including Lost Ruins improvements.Bug FixesFixed crashes caused by timers outliving their targets (use-after-free), improving overall stability.Improved crash detection and prevention alongside the difficulty-scaling changes.Fixed projectile rotation desync and improved velocity replication so projectiles appear correctly for clients.Fixed speed-buff st...
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