Blight: Survival has reemerged with a new gameplay trailer — and its developers are promising big news in 2026 after a whopping 1.5 million Steam wishlists.

In a new development update, publisher Behaviour Interactive, of Dead by Daylight fame, and developer Haenir Studio, announced small scape playtests to help shape the game’s future.

Blight: Survival is a medieval co-op action horror game whose 2022 announcement trailer — an early look at gameplay — has seen 3.9 million views on IGN’s YouTube channel alone. The new trailer, below, shows new in-engine footage showcasing combat finishers.

After the trailer went viral and those Steam Wishlists piled up, Ulrik Langvandsbråten, creative director and cofounder at Haenir Studio, partnered with Behaviour and set about rebuilding Blight’s core systems from the ground up.

In an interview with IGN, Ashley Pannell, senior creative director on Blight: Survival at Behaviour Interactive, acknowledged the pressure the team is now under following its viral success and the weight of so many Steam Wishlists, but said the pressure will result in a better game.

“We understand the heightened expectations of what we are being asked to deliver upon here,” he said. “What I personally really love about this is somehow the zombie trope is so powerful that it’s such an all- encompassing thing that we just have to deliver on those expectations to the best of our ability. And that’s really our goal every day, is to try and reach that benchmark to work towards those goals. And yeah, it absolutely is a big responsibility for us to do that. But one of the things that we have as a result of this, is that we have a community with us, and we have a group of people who are on this journey with us. We’re not alone here. It wasn’t just comments from three years ago. And even now, we are doing small scale play tests with members of the community, with the team, to really try and fulfill those expectations and make sure that we deliver on the game that A, they thought it was going to be, and B, that we believe that it can be at the same time.

“So we’re on a journey together. We may have not been loud to the world, but we’ve been very active with our community, talking to our community, making sure that we get their feedback whenever we can. And like I said, even through actual small scale playtesting already, which we’re doing regularly.”

2022 feels like a long time ago now, and gamers have been burnt before by Steam games that have either failed to meet expectations, failed to even come out, or scammed customers outright. People are more sceptical now of flashy, ‘too good to be true’ gameplay reveal trailers from unknown developers than they perhaps were just a few years ago. And this is something Pannell said the team is well aware of.

“From a dev team perspective, we obviously know that we’re building a real game every day, every moment,” Pannell said. “So on a day-to-day basis, as a creator, I tend not to think too much about it. But it’s true. It’s absolutely true and correct that obviously people have been burned by things that have been released. Our goal is to ultimately, as we move forward, prove that we are making a real game, that it is awesome. We’re focusing on the fun, we’re focusing on the things that really matter to making a good quality, fun game that fulfills these expectations.

“We do talk about it. We do think about it. It does, like anything, that worries us. But then 10 years before that it was, did you have a loopbox in your game? 10 years before that it was something else. There’s always something to worry about. And I guess our goal is to manage the expectations and make sure that as we move forward and develop, that we release what we think is right. What is good, what is right and what is fun? And how can we deliver this message in a way that is meaningful to people and especially our community that if anyone is primed for a fall, it’s the people who started coming along for the ride in the first place. So yeah, it’s a thing we think about, but I wouldn’t say it dominates our thoughts. I mean, certainly, before we had this meeting, we had like, this could come up. It’s a thing that is real in the world right now and it’s important to be able to tackle.”

So, what is Blight: Survival? It’s an action horror co-op game set in a brutal medieval world. “It is a game where tension beats at the heart of the whole experience,” Pannell explained. “So I’m not going to land directly on any obvious genres here other than that overall thing. So as a player, every combat you enter will have a risk and reward. And risk reward is a key element of the overall driving part of many features in the game. So whatever you do, you always have to weigh up your decisions really carefully because every fight might be your last, every investigation might be your last, or it might bring you great reward. It’s not just a traditional action horror, it’s not a hack and slash, but it definitely is beating at the heart of this tension that is driven by risk and reward wherever we can find it in the situation we have.

“So it borrows from a number of different genres, but I think our closest landing point is action horror. It is a combat driven game with elements of exploration, with extraction light elements that are in there, and other elements also from games of that genre that help us drive the internal tension and the risk the players take whenever they’re in a given space.”

As for those extraction elements, don’t expect a clone of Arc Raiders or Marathon. “We have loss in our game, and the decision whether to bank that or keep it at some point in the game will become a key choice the player makes,” Pannell teased. “The decision to take more risk at the consequence of, for want of a description, call it extracting early to bank your reward will or is currently in the game as we would expect and a core component of how the game plays. So we have extraction elements, but it’s not driven exclusively as the extraction genre. And we’re also taking extraction influence from other types of games, like for example, Helldivers or Deep Rock Galactic, that have extraction components as a core part of the phase of the game.

“Again, not a direct analog, but we have both elements of what we normally consider a round-based game with extraction, plus a pure extraction game too. We have both those elements in our game, and they work in harmony with each other over the course of your playtime.

“The core game loop is you go in, you try and amass what you can, and you can always push for more, but you could always back out when you feel like you’ve got something that is meaningful.”

Don’t expect a release in 2026, but things are certainly ramping up. There are 45,000 people in the Blight discord, where playtesters will be plucked from. And the developers will then respond to feedback.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

There’s something endlessly endearing about a good-natured dummy. Just a happy, optimistic doofus that can barely scrape two brain cells together to form a thought. You can take your dark and brooding Kratos, or your wisecracking Spider-Man. Give me Dunk from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, or Guybrush Threepwood from The Secret of Monkey Island, heck, even the dog from Up, any day of the week. And soon, give me Davy, the undead nobody, from Stupid Never Dies, the upcoming action-RPG and debut release from the Devil May Cry and Resident Evil veterans at GPTRACK50.

IGN recently met with the team behind Stupid Never Dies for a first look at Davy’s wild adventure. With blazing-fast action, a slick approach to changing combat styles, and a naive goofball of a hero that might just be in over his head, this has the makings of a damned good time. And, like many of the best, most foolish adventures, it starts with a bit of romance.

Romance is (un)dead

Davy is dead. Not figuratively, or metaphorically, he’s literally dead, and risen again as a zombie. The world has gone to hell (again, not a metaphor), and monsters now roam the world, in total control. As a lowly zombie, Davy sits firmly at the bottom rung of monster society. Weak and powerless, he wanders an abandoned shopping mall, his un-life devoid of meaning or purpose, until he “meets” Julia.

Julia, like Davy, is dead. Though in her case being dead stuck. Instead of a zombie roaming around the end of the world, she met her end in a freezer inside of the mall, and has stayed a human popsicle for who knows how long. When Davy shambles upon her one day, it’s love at first sight, and he makes it his mission to bring Julia back to life, and ask her out.

It’s not exactly the sort of meet-cute you’d see in a Hallmark movie, but it’s enough to send Davy delving deep into creature-filled dungeons in hopes of taking on the King of Monsters (or KOM), stealing his powers, and saving Julia. Davy isn’t usually a fighter, but with Julia’s life on the line, he’s willing to make an exception.

This not-even-remotely-thought-out mission might seem doomed before it starts, but, thanks to some dumb luck, Davy finds a strange egg, and, feeling a bit hungry, decides to make a meal of it. While eating random mystery eggs is not typically a good idea, in Davy’s case it works out beautifully. That snack turns out to be a phoenix egg, and eating it has awakened Davy’s dormant zombie power, and granted him an incredible new ability called Style Eat.

Funky Zombie Action

The KOM rules over monsters from deep within his dungeon, and Davy will need to fight through his armies to reach him. The miasma that permeates the dungeon directly affects Davy. Unlike the surface, where he moves with the classic slow undead shuffly, the miasma turbo charges Davy, allowing him to run, jump, and attack freely. His bite allows him to rip through other monsters, and by sinking his teeth into their core, he activates Style Eat, and that’s when the fun really begins.

Style Eat allows Davy to take on the characteristics and abilities of his enemies. Think Mega Man, or even Kameo, but with more gnawing. Snack on a werewolf, for example, and you’ll gain claws, fur, and beastlike agility, allowing you to rapidly tear through monsters and opening up new traversal options. Or chomp on a Lich to gain the ability to raise an army of skeletons from the enemies you kill. There are 11 styles total, and you can switch between them at the touch of a button – though limited slots mean you won’t be able to equip all of them at once. You can, however, combo the ones you do have. One example given was flying above enemies using the Harpy Style, then transforming into a heavy monster made of rock using the Golem Style, and crashing down on top of enemies.

The other trick up Davy’s infected sleeves is Body Hack, which allows you to customize his arms, head, and legs with special gear to add special effects. We only saw a small selection of the arm modifications, but seeing a missile pod strapped to Davy’s arm, and him unleashing ghoulish hell on a group of monsters was a pretty clear tone-setter. These also persist with the Style Eat transformations, so if you want to go into a fight as a Werewolf with a giant sword for an arm, you’re in luck.

While Stupid Never Dies isn’t necessarily a roguelike, it does have some of that DNA in its approach to progression. Each venture into the dungeon has a time limit, and Davy won’t be able to make it all the way to the KOM right away. You keep any loot you collect, but each fresh run resets Davy’s level back down to zero. However, as you progress further you will build an XP multiplier, allowing you to level up faster, and make it deeper on the next attempt.

With enough persistence, Davy may yet be able to slay KOM and Julia, though it remains to be seen if our lovable, undead-doofus of a protagonist will get the girls in the end. Fortunately, we won’t need to wait too long to sink our teeth into some monsters and find out. Stupid Never Dies on PC and PlayStation 5 later this year.