Where can I read Ground Zero patch notes?

This page lists official Steam announcements for Ground Zero, including the latest post "New Report – Steam Summer Sale is here.". Each entry links to the full changelog on Steam.

How many people are playing Ground Zero right now?

Ground Zero currently shows 25 concurrent Steam players on SteamScope. Player counts refresh on a rolling schedule — typically about every 30 minutes for high-priority titles.

How often are Ground Zero patch notes updated on SteamScope?

SteamScope ingests new Steam announcements as they are published. Check back after major updates, seasons, or balance patches to see fresh entries at the top of this feed.

Is Ground Zero patch note data official?

SteamScope republishes developer announcements sourced from Steam's public news feeds. SteamScope is not affiliated with Valve Corporation. Always verify critical gameplay changes on the official Steam announcement.

Ground Zero Patch Notes & News

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Ground Zero Patch Notes & News | SteamScope

Field Intel: Guidelines for Survival in Busan.

Liam Bsteam_community_announcements

171d ago

Retro-style horror games are known for their steep learning curves and quirks. We put together this guide to help you handle the mechanics and survive the most intense moments.

However, if you enjoy the difficulty of going in blind, avoid this guide at all costs.

Armed Combat

There’s a few abilities to help you out when using a gun, making you more likely to land your hits and down your targets.

You’ll automatically aim at your closest target when you ready your weapon and auto-track them for a short time. To keep your aim trained on the target, hold the Lock button while aiming.

You can also manually adjust your alignment while aiming, which allows you to go for headshots and deal extra damage.

Quickly switch targets with the Switch Target button. You will cycle through all available targets around you, including environmental hazards like exploding barrels.

Finally, holding the Focus button while aiming will bring up a slider that, with the correct timing, allows you to deal a critical shot to an enemy - most basic monsters will die in one hit from this. You can also use this to open special locks, so look out for those!

Melee Combat

On top of ranged combat, Ground Zero also has a lot of melee mechanics. These can help keep you safe without expending all your ammo.

Directional dodges can get you out of trouble at the expense of Stamina - these need to be done with the Dodge button while holding any direction. When you’re out of stamina, you will hear your character panting and the screen will darken slightly. Stamina recovers naturally over time, and red serums can give you a temp boost - and using 3x red in a serum will permanently boost your stamina capacity.

Move while attacking - you don’t need to stand in one spot to use your knife! You can perform melee attacks while strafing to keep a little distance between you and your attacker. Block to reduce damage if you don’t think you can get out of the way. If you perfectly time your block, it also performs a Parry - you’ll hear a distinct noise and see your character deflect your attacker. After a successful parry, press the Dodge key to do a damage-dealing Counter-Attack. Some enemies are harder to block than others, so be cautious!

And, of course, if you see an enemy go down but not die, stand over them and Execute to kill them with your leg blade.

Safes and Save Points

Ground Zero’s safe rooms often have 2 separate stations to help you out: the Item Safes, and the Data Uplinks.

The Item Safes can be used to store items outside of your inventory. All safes are linked together - putting an item in Safe 1 will show up in Safe 2. You’ll need to solve a puzzle to open a Safe for the first time, after which it’ll be permanently available.

Data Uplinks, on the other hand, are where you can manually save the game. They require a Signal Modulator to unlock them, after which you can use that Uplink as much as you like to save your game.

Signal Modulators exist as items to pick up throughout the game, usually only a small distance from an Uplink. The game will also auto-save at points, so you shouldn’t be too far away from a save if you’ve made a lot of progress.

Safe Puzzles

Safes are locked behind a small math puzzle. If those aren’t your thing, there’s a couple of tools that can bypass some of that frustration.

As a hint, you can only use each given number and symbol in a solution once, making it possible to brute-force. The UI tells you what your current attempt adds up to, so you can use that to help you get closer to the solution.

Next, we have Safe Cracking Explosives, which you can find in the world. These allow you to bypass the puzzle entirely, but it’ll cost you the bonus item reward. If you have an Explosive in your Inventory when you interact with a safe, you’ll see a prompt in the UI at the bottom to use your explosive if you like.

Finally, if you want a helping hand with the puzzle but don’t want to sacrifice the bonus item, you can buy Ciphers from the Genome Point shop. These will reveal part of the solution without a penalty.

When You’re Outnumbered

Sometimes you’ll end up in situations where there’s a lot of enemies and it’s overwhelming to try to take them all on. You don’t have to face everything head-on, sometimes it’s best to just RUN AWAY!

Leaving an area and re-entering will reset the positions of enemies, but they’ll still keep any damage you inflicted on them if you want to come back and finish the job.

If you’re in a bad spot with a lot of enemies close behind you, resetting the area by leaving and entering can make it easier to get some more breathing room.

Remember, you don’t have to kill everything - and sometimes, you can’t.

Practice/Training

If you’d like to practice your combat, the Training Room exists and can be accessed any time from the main menu. There’s 3 separate floors, each explaining different mechanics. We know that not everyone enjoys training, so it’s only optional, never mandatory - but we give you a small reward for completing it.

Getting Lost

We have some pretty big levels! If you get lost, you can use the Map to see where you are, as well as the locations of any items, locked doors, etc. that you may have passed by. If you can’t remember what your objective is, your character will have a Mental Note in the Inventory to help remind you what you were doing.

If you need any further guidance, join the Discord and speak to your fellow agents.

Dev Diary #7: Weapon Animations

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

248d ago

Hello again, this is Janz. I want to talk about how I enjoy my job as a game animator, especially when working with weapon animations.

What research do you do before you begin animating for a specific weapon, especially weapons that are based on real-life ones? First, it will be about how the weapon works, how it functions, and how it's supposed to be used. I'll watch online videos either real life footage or a military video instruction or a 3d animation video of how the weapon is being used. Second is, you need to observe how the person feels about the weapon and how it impacts the person. Let's say an Assault Rifle; how strong the recoil is or how the user react to the recoil, how they reload the weapon in fast or slow speed, panicking or not panicking. Lastly, here’s the fun part: you need to re-enact or to imagine yourself as that character you’re animating, how your character will feel and act with their weapon. Either you experience it directly by having a real weapon or an imitation of the weapon or maybe just having a replica or just a branch or any object that you can use to visualize how your character will feel about the gun. You can even use yourself as a reference by recording yourself. It can also motivate you to have fun with your research. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/474b22f7a329f16ffbf9310d1b5c0fbfed1c8e65.gif What is your process when it comes to developing the weapon animations for each weapon? Is it different for each one or do you follow the same base process for every weapon? It's almost the same for most weapons, but when it comes to, for example, melee weapons, let's say a standard knife, it only requires you to watch online videos of people doing a slash or a stab, flashy or straight to the point. There's no "weapon" movements but just character movements (except if the knife is a switch blade that requires a bone to draw the blade, etc.). But when it comes to guns, there are internal and external movements such as the slide of a handgun, or an AR's bolt release action or a reciprocating charging handle, which also need movements. After watching the reference videos and enjoying the re-enactment/imagination/visualization, you need to prepare the weapon rig with these questions in mind:

How the character will hold the weapon in-game, or how will it be implemented to the character?
How the gun functions and how you will animate it: Does it need complex rigging (takes a bit of time) or does it need to be a simple rig? (faster and helpful for tight deadlines).
How the reloads will work: Will there be a tactical reload that requires you to add another bone for the other magazine? Are there parts of the weapon that needs an appearing and disappearing effect? How will you handle gun effects? etc.
How the rig looks like in-game: Will there be a bone or a guide where the muzzle flash or smoke effects will be placed?

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/72a58744edbef2733c8c1495c4f2287186bbd77b.gif After rigging, make some test animations first. On this stage, you might still need to go back and forth with your rig for adjustments and modifications. When I'm ready for animations, I'll ask our director on how I should approach the weapon animations and what he has in mind. At this stage, you'll need to communicate every animation sequence, for example: ask how long a reload should be, or if the poses that you come up with need changing, etc. Then of course, presenting your work can be nerve-wracking most of the time… BUT! it can also be fun and enjoyable. You can see above Seo-Yeon’s animations in third-person then it goes to first-person below. It’s enjoyable to present it that way to the team. It does not take that much time and effort to do if you’re willing but it can also be enjoyable. The extra effort to do some cool stuff rewards me with joy. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/b6a56c31d1464d82372e1321531bf9181512b6cf.gif How do you balance making sure that the weapon animations look authentic while also not taking up too much time or impacting the gameplay in a negative way? It only takes too much time when you don't test things and when you don't ask the team for their feedback. As an animator, you need to discuss with the director and with the team about the weapon. Even after implementing, you might change some animations down the line, either major or minor thing, when the director or majority of the team votes for changing and it seems that it's really needed, then you'll need to adjust and edit, recreate or remove the animation. You need to test it in-game whether it feels right or whether it needs tweaking or it needs changing. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/35823b729cd484cd7f39263879c6dbb81537a8cc.gif How do you enjoy the whole process? You need to be passionate to enjoy your work. Not only by words but by giving time and effort, as long as it doesn’t take your work hours, do it. If you can’t enjoy it, do something to enjoy it. What made it enjoyable is how I imagine or re-enact the animations that I want to do and how I present my render videos to the team. It can certainly boost your morale and the team’s morale and will affect you positively, as it was for me. Until next time, Janz https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans about this latest dev diary? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/006384b6dbe8b035466bfa90935218e12b498319.gif {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41250025/bb7e23a1085b28d25df050902e1e02b960917525.png{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41250025/53a9f2fcd1bf24f4e1735dbc90b248bd39572da1.png{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41250025/1e551f92a20d174c14f449ebd6ef769c2f8de0af.png

Ground Zero Demo: Patch #1

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

278d ago

We've got one final treat for you, just in time for Halloween 🎃 We've just released the first patch for our demo, where we've revamped some of the controls based on player feedback and also resolved some of the bugs you have reported.

When you start up the demo after the patch, your controls will reset on first launch, but this will only happen one time.

New Features

When the demo boots up for first time players (and existing players following this patch), there is now an interactive screen where you can test out the Tank/Modern controls before you select them. You can still change your controls choice at any time in the Options menu as well.
Default controls have now been slightly changed. You can still rebind controls as well.
Players can now lock on to the nearest enemy in your line of sight by holding (B) on gamepad and SHIFT on PC.
The aiming sliders are now much more fine-grain to allow for better precision.
D-Pad movement has now been enabled for anyone who wishes to move Seo-Yeon using the D-Pad. This can be disabled in the Controls section of the Options menu if you wish to bind other buttons to the D-Pad.
Added button to reset controls to default.
Added a run button to controller, which is (B) under default controls.
Added the ability to open the map by holding the Inventory button.
Added a little visual indicator on critical shot aiming to visually notify when the shot is ready.
You can now fire off a critical shot by releasing the critical shot button after aiming - Default (A) on controller and E on PC. You can still cancel this action by releasing the aim button.
You can now auto-aim at environmental hazards by switching target (it prefers enemies) - Default (LT) on controller and T on PC.

Bug Fixes

This patch also includes the following bug fixes:

Fixed an issue where horizontal/vertical aiming was affected by framerate.
Inventory is now on button release to prevent accidentally spamming inventory open/close.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to give feedback on our demo and provide bug reports so far! Your support and assistance has been invaluable. If you have any more bug reports or feedback you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you in the Steam Forums or in our Discord!

Dev Diary #6: Level Optimization in Ground Zero

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

284d ago

Hello again! I'm Nathan, the Lead Level Designer at Malformation Games working on Ground Zero. In this dev diary, I'd like to give some insight into the optimization workflow I use when working with the game's levels.

In general, the primary goal of optimization is to improve the experience for you, the player. In terms of graphics, this translates to maximizing framerates by reducing rendering loads and, in terms of gameplay, this translates to doing anything that improves the quality-of-life of the overall experience of playing the game. In general, optimization is one of the most important parts of the process as a level designer. It's so important that it's very common to consider it early on in the initial draft stages of creating a level. There are two "flavors" of level optimization that I'd like to focus on that all levels in the game undergo before reaching their final state:

Collision Optimization

Graphical Optimization Collision Optimization
In the game world, where the player can and cannot move is controlled by the collisions of the objects in the level. Most objects have a "collision hull", usually in the shape of a box, pill-shaped capsule, or other polygon that roughly matches the shape of the object. When two objects pass near one another, checks are ran by the game's engine to see if their collision hulls are intersecting. If they are, no movement can occur, and the objects are blocked. This allows for objects obstructing the player's path to block the player from advancing forward, just as one would expect in a real-life scenario. Here is an example of Seo-Yeon's collision hull (expressed as a capsule): {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/3f7d99cfc2410038e1d312fc0d5b3abb0d3cea67.png Snags
Due to the simplistic nature of collision detection in most video game engines, if any part of the player's collision hull is intersecting another object's, the player will be blocked, even if the object in the way is very small or only touching a small part of the player's collision hull. This collision behavior leads to a common phenomenon that I like to refer to as a "snag". Snags occur when small objects or edges, which look like they should not obstruct the path, block player movement unnaturally. This can lead to very frustrating situations for the player during high-intensity moments. A common way of fixing snags is to disable the collisions of objects, which allows the player to move through them without being blocked. We do this in many places in the game as it is, however it can sometimes look strange to see the player move directly through larger objects. In those situations, we have to seek alternative solutions. The most common secondary solution involves the usage of invisible walls. Using invisible walls, we can construct new collision regions that patch up gaps and allow the player to move past snag geometry without becoming stuck. An example of this can be seen below: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/5d4fc41e9317a400e1a667218b43a6abd609094d.gif After adding the invisible walls in the above image, the player will now nicely "glide" along the pink surface, instead of getting caught on each of the small edges of the cars, growth, and other geometry. We use invisible walls all over the place in GZ to prevent snags. Maybe you'll notice some of them next time you play! Stairs
Stairs present an interesting scenario. Aiming is crucial to the gameplay in Ground Zero and, while aiming, walking on a set of stairs causes the player's laser sight to "jump" or "bounce" each time they walk onto a new step, which can throw off their aim. Similarly, enemies that are traversing stairs will also appear to abruptly "bounce" while walking on the steps, making it harder to hit them. Just as with snags, we can use invisible walls to improve this. By filling in the negative space of the stairs, we can effectively convert it into a ramp: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/c1bdca994d43745a63ab31c1fae68254d8351332.gif This new invisible sloped surface makes vertical movement much more gradual, which in turn makes it possible to move on the stairs while also keeping your aim on-target at the same time. Enemies will now also move smoothly up and down, making hitting shots on them much more reliable. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/82b42b504b985f90701705836822b006270f3389.gif This is a very minor, but welcome quality-of-life improvement to the combat experience, and one that many other games employ as well. Almost every single staircase in Ground Zero has had this treatment, especially in combat areas. Graphical Optimization
This is the meat of the optimization workload, and also the most noticeable to the average player. A lacking or insufficient graphical optimization pass results in bad framerates, and bad framerates lead to an unplayable and frustrating experience for the player. The main way we improve framerates is by reducing the amount of objects that the game engine needs to render at the same time. Thanks to Ground Zero being a fixed-perspective and prerendered game, there are several clever approaches we can take to achieve good results with minimal effort. Fixed Perspective We can take advantage of the fixed-perspective nature of the game by removing objects from the scene that the camera (and player) will never actually see. This is different from other games, where the player could potentially move the camera wherever they'd like. In Ground Zero, there are a handful of places where the areas just behind the camera or around corners are entirely nonexistent or very minimally detailed. Because we can guarantee that the camera never shows those regions, there's no reason to make anything there, saving precious frames as well as development time! The Facade Layer We can take advantage of the prerendered nature of the game by removing objects which are only necessary for the sake of producing the background image. To accomplish this, we utilize a special "facade layer", which is a special sublevel that is removed in the final game. By placing objects into this special layer, they are available to be captured as part of the prerendered background, but are then removed automatically during regular gameplay, significantly reducing the amount of objects in the scene and improving framerates. The prime candidates for objects to be moved into the facade are objects that the player will never interact with, due to being in one of the following categories:

Objects that are out of reach of the player (e.g. out-of-bounds or are high up on walls / on top of buildings)

Objects that are extremely small or non-solid (e.g decals and very thin objects such as papers on the ground, small rocks/pebbles, etc) The magical thing about this solution is that because the game is prerendered, the player will never actually notice this massive removal of objects, because the background being shown was created before their removal. After removing the facade layer, the only objects physically remaining in the level are those objects which are necessary for gameplay, either because they form the boundaries of the playable space, or because they are objects that the player interacts with directly. After stripping out the facade layer, what is leftover tends to be much simpler than the fully detailed version, improving the framerate significantly in most areas. Here's an example of this: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/3e567d446b8bc3273a2e62eec8fd2a321a14d207.gif One of the best things about the facade layer is that it provides the means for us to add a theoretically infinite amount of additional details to our prerendered backgrounds with absolutely zero graphical performance cost, something that would not be possible in any real-time graphics game. There are several other creative methods we utilize to optimize the experience for players (for example distance culling), but writing about all of that would make this a pretty long diary, so I've only included the most interesting ones (in my opinion). Maybe someday I can show off some more cool stuff. Hopefully this diary gives you more of an insight into what goes on under the hood! Thanks for reading! Until next time, Nathan https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

What aspects of Ground Zero would you like to know more about in future developer diaries? Let us know in the comments 💬

Ground Zero Demo OUT NOW!

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

293d ago

What better way to get into the horror mindset on the run-up to Halloween than by playing our brand new demo?

We’re excited to announce that our first public demo for Ground Zero is OUT NOW as part of Next Fest! We’d really appreciate it if you could give our demo a try and let us know what you think of it by leaving a review on the demo store page. Alongside giving you a taste of what will be in the final game, our demo also has some speedrunning features added in which we’d encourage you to try! Once you’ve completed the demo, you’ll unlock the ability to create “ghost” versions of yourself, which show you the path you used for your best recorded time. As you follow them, you should be able to find areas where you can improve your run as well. If you don’t want to be chased by the ghosts of speedruns past though, you can toggle this feature on/off in the options menu. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/06abd3b0629cbabf2464a7d0063334eb740d77d9.png Ground Zero is a retro survival horror game where you’ll take on the role of Seo-Yeon, an elite Korean operative who has been tasked with investigating the meteor impact site in her homeland. Backed up by her Canadian counterpart Evan, Seo-Yeon must make her way through the post-apocalyptic landscape, gather biological data on the mutated creatures that inhabit it, and piece together the mystery behind this anomalous event. With fixed camera angles, optional tank controls, and artistic inspiration from survival horror classics, Ground Zero is a love letter to the horror genre. If you encounter any bugs in the demo or have any feedback on what you’d like to see in the final game, please let us know in our Steam Forum or on our Discord. We’ll be gathering bug reports and feedback throughout Next Fest to make sure we iron out any bugs before launch and to consider any suggestions for the final game! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans about our demo or share your demo speedrunning stats? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

Dev Diary #5: Designing the Train Level

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

312d ago

My name is Sixten. I’m one of the artists working on Ground Zero and I’m here to talk about the art of the train level.

So what makes the train level so unique compared to other levels in Ground Zero? Since the train level is a more cramped space than the areas in other levels, we focused more of our attention on materials and textures. Another key difference compared is that the train is moving, which presented unique challenges. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/f2506c39df1364f5c1972d34d65e3e0ced4c2ff4.png In terms of design, the train is mainly inspired by the Orient Express, but with some inspiration from late 1800s architecture. So in short, the train is made up, but we did take inspiration from many different real-world places! We wanted to achieve an “upper class” and old feeling environment! Levels set in claustrophobic trains or on the subway were commonplace in classic survival horror games, so that’s the vibe we were going for. In particular, the train level in Resident Evil 0 was a great source of inspiration! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/76033890fc52073480b3935b0c9577805b751659.pngThe train level in Resident Evil 0. The train is constantly moving, which as you can imagine presents an unique challenge in a prerendered game. Also, since the train is moving quite fast, designing the world around the train would involve a lot of work. To combat these problems, the train isn’t actually moving, rather the world around it is. So we built the environment in chunks that move past the train and will give the illusion of the train moving. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/b211e46a8c1294f0334b4e946c6e8a7fa59a55a5.gif The prototype of the world moving outside of the train. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/5a321bafa403452f6bb60fab985ea0ad90113581.gif The finalised view from the train window. Another big challenge with creating a level like this is the cramped and linear design you naturally get from a train. There’s not much room to move around and kite enemies, so combat is a lot harder to get right. There’s also less you can do artistically with a restricted and linear space like this. Because of this, we had to make sure that the level wasn't too long, that it feels just right. And that the train feels interesting all the way through! There are a lot of other things we included that help with this, which I won’t go into much here to avoid spoilers, you will have to play the game and find out what they are yourself 😉 {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/ca752fcb5bf80533fcfe4db83e50bb4523a07070.png As I mentioned earlier, from a design perspective, the train’s look is inspired by the Orient express and late 1800s architecture, with lots of wooden panels and a more “upper class” feel, which makes it stylistically quite different from other levels. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/6e37d422aeee6c2b1662041b01fb88ab6af56482.png The train has also been less affected by the events in Ground Zero compared to other areas in the game like Gamcheon, since it has mostly been dormant. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/6b63fb9cee6e5966affe39642eea9bb206ca2db3.png On a personal note, I think my favorite aspect of this level is that the cramped space and linear design allowed us to really focus on a smaller area, which in turn led to us making a really unique area! It’s not just art related either. I think the design work as a whole on the train is really strong, where the cramped area and difficulty of kiting enemies becomes one of the level’s strong suits! Until next time, - Sixten https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

What aspects of Ground Zero would you like to know more about in future developer diaries? Let us know in the comments 💬

Dev Diary #4: Level Design in Ground Zero

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

354d ago

Hello there! My name is Nathan and I’m the Lead Level Designer for Ground Zero.

I just wanted to say up front that I'm extremely humbled and excited at the level of interest that you, the reader, and so many others have shown for our game. Thank you so much for the support, it really means a lot! In this dev diary, I wanted to give some insight into what goes on behind-the-scenes when designing and creating the levels for GZ and maybe even teach some of you something new!

A little about me.

I’m a lifelong gamer and survival horror superfan. My gaming roots are primarily in first person shooters and I grew up playing a lot of the FPS classics like Quake, Doom, Wolfenstein, and most importantly, Half-Life 1. HL1 was my entry point into modding & level design as a kid and it singlehandedly ignited my passion and led to me pursuing it as a career. My love for survival horror came almost entirely from my dad, who I watched play countless hours of Silent Hill and Resident Evil games back then. When I played the games myself, the gameplay loop had me addicted and I loved the feeling of being scared and having to make good use of limited resources. There isn’t anything quite like it in my opinion!

How do you get started when making new maps for Ground Zero?

As with most games, the first objective when starting a new map is to nail down the design. Some games rely heavily on the layout of the level being specifically tailored to support the game’s mechanics (for example games that incorporate parkour / movement mechanics or basically any stealth game), while other games lean more on the storytelling and pacing. GZ falls primarily in the latter category. For the most part, we can design our maps based on what we find cool and what works for specific ideas (puzzles, cutscenes, etc.) that we might have. It also means that nearly any setting or location is viable from a gameplay perspective, and this is a primary contributor to the high variety of environments seen in GZ. Of course, there are still some cases where we design things in a very specific way. In those cases, I'll take the standard approach, which usually involves drawing a topdown and making a whiteboxed level to prototype the idea, then iterating from there through playtesting and feedback. It’s also common that I’ll write up a list of the gameplay “beats” and make a flowchart that we can use to figure out how the puzzles and other sequences will go before sitting down in the editor. Here are a few examples of some old sketches of existing levels in the game: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/6d8dcc4de020b189463f02519660d6b348111510.pngOriginal sketch of the Village map. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/7f9f0d5fbe5fd587098a31922b0d37ed48ae81c1.pngOriginal sketch of the Amusement Park map.

Are there any specific games that have influenced the level design in Ground Zero?

I’d say the classic Resident Evils (especially RE3) and the first three Silent Hill games, but there are many inspirations and references from a handful of games (some even outside of the survival horror genre) that can be seen all over the place in GZ’s level design. Maybe you'll notice some when you play!

How do you choose how to position the cameras?

This is quite a bit more complicated than you might think! When we first started the project, I thought of camera placement as being as simple as placing a camera in a position that you thought looked cool, and then calling it a day. I realized very quickly that there's actually somewhat of a “science” to it. GZ is a fixed-camera game, which means that the player cannot control what they see. This is in contrast to almost all other types of games, where as a level designer, you can create a scene and leave the player free to look around at their leisure and take in the world you've created. In GZ, due to the fixed camera, we have to do it all. We have to allow you to see where you're going and what you’re doing but, at the same time, *also* show off the world and allow you to take in the environment through unique and interesting camera angles. It’s not uncommon at all that specific sections of a level are created with specific camera angles in mind, and this is easily one of the biggest differences between making levels for GZ and pretty much any other game I've ever worked on or modded for. The best camera angles incorporate the following, in order of importance:

Clear “exit routes” that show where the player needs to move to exit the camera angle and progress forward

No locations where enemies, items, or the player themself are able to move completely out of sight of the camera

Objectives, items, enemies, and any other objects of importance clearly visible

A clear view of the scene so that the player can fight enemies and properly gauge the playable space. To this end, we typically keep the intended gameplay space clean of debris and other obstructions to make it easy to tell where the player can and cannot move. We can also use the high contrast created by clashing colors and lights to more clearly define the walkable space as well

Aesthetically pleasing visuals Here’s an example of a camera angle that I feel accomplishes all of these rather well: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/1a6c87140823f86e559b353978ae5799e07eb995.gif

What’s your favorite level that you’ve worked on for Ground Zero?

Without a doubt, it would be the top of the lighthouse that can be seen at the beginning of the game. It’s based on the real-life Yeongdo Lighthouse, and when we were considering it as a destination, I wanted to leverage it as a nice payoff to all the work the player has done. You travel pretty far in the game, and once you finally arrive and reach the top, you get a breathtaking view of everywhere you've been up until that point, which helps tie it all together. I've tried to incorporate these types of vistas into the game whenever I can, because they help to show off the sheer scale of the world in GZ, something which only adds to the immersion and atmosphere in my opinion. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/669591d4de69ab5a783964747a08f8ffad9d214b.png A close contender for me would be our in-game recreation of the Bolle-gil coastal trail. In real-life, it’s a really cool oceanside walkway in the Busan region that has a very distinct red metallic look and tons of beautiful viewpoints of the coast and city. I love the winding nature of the trail and how it snakes around the cliffs, and I’ve tried to capture that essence as much as possible in the in-game version. It’s one of the most unique areas in the game and I had a lot of fun working on it! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/9b9d81768ab61f09cd3f5e231e1fc0ebf65c3644.png That being said, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working on just about every part of this game, and it’s honestly so hard to boil it all down to just one or two favorites. South Korea is a beautiful country, full of amazing architecture and cool areas that have kept me more than inspired while working on the game. Thanks for reading and I'm really excited for you all to see the rest of what we have in store! Until next time, - Nathan https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

What aspects of Ground Zero would you like to know more about in future developer diaries? Let us know in the comments 💬

Dev Diary #3: An Interview with Voice Actor Evan Sabba

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

382d ago

Hey! My name is Evan Sabba and I’m the voice actor behind Evan in Ground Zero, the elite operative from Canada who accompanies Seo-Yeon during her investigation of the meteor impact site in South Korea. I’m excited to do this interview to talk about my voice acting career so far and what it’s been like voicing Evan!

When did you first know that you wanted to pursue a career in voice acting? I think it was something I always wanted to do since childhood. I remember growing up on Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, which inspired me to want to act out scenes from the shows. One day day, I found my mother’s THE PLANETS record, composed by GUSTAV HOLST (which I believe John Williams built a lot of the Star Wars music from), and would play along to it. It’s very dramatic music, so I would use it to act out scenes on my own or with my friends and we’d record them on my mother’s cassette recorder. We did whole hallway walking scenes, captain in his command chair scenes, engine room scenes, discovery scenes, and of course battle scenes! Obviously we’d make our own laser and explosion sound effects as well, to make it more realistic. So really, acting has ALWAYS been a huge part of my life. Describe what your career has been like so far, from the point when you first started voice acting to now. This is a challenge to answer, since the truth is filled with heartache, broken dreams, missed opportunities, self loathing, self appreciation, desperation, excitement, blessings, thunderous applause, brilliant successes, tears of joy. The highs and the lows from seeing yourself on the big screen to not working for years at a stretch. You know those face masks? Comedy and Tragedy? Turns out those are pretty accurate when it comes to being an actor! It’s been a ride so far, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s hard to want or imagine any other life for myself. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/268b3b135bc22615ab2377aba196015ce9bd9c3e.jpgEvan Sabba. What challenges do you face as a voice actor in the games industry? We all know the big one. AI replacement. Everything is like that old game PONG right now. PONG released on November 29th 1972. Look where we are now with games. Didn’t take long to get here, right? So imagine AI Voice mapping and reproduction is PONG right NOW as of 2025. Paying artists with dignity and appreciation will go out the window when no one thinks of it as an art. I fear corporate directions and interests will pollute the world with data produced noise, rather than lovingly captured real human voices. A human’s voice is shaped by the performer’s whole extremely diverse life, the joy and the pain of existence. I fear AI will dehumanize concepts of art and existence. What other games have you worked on besides Ground Zero? I had the extreme pleasure of voicing Brad Vickers in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Yes, I am the guy who Nemesis takes out at the RPD. He was after STARS members, and there was no escape for me. Jill got away though. She was lucky and made it out somehow. Good for her, I guess! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/efea90d0ecc0659be45ad3edd2b0f3de1233b045.png Character art of Brad Vickers from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. What types of games do you like to play in your free time? I play EVERYTHING. I mean it. There are some types of games I do not play for longer stretches than others, but eventually I will at least try them. I do not have the time to finish all the games I own, which seems to be a common issue with gamers! I will at least try and see some of the artwork, design, controls, and imagination at play for however briefly I get with a game. It’s sort of like going to a gallery to see some paintings. I may spend more time looking at one painting than another, but I want to see all the paintings I can. I’m there letting the painting affect me. Let what I am looking at IN and feel what emotions and thoughts the painter wanted to create in me. That’s how I like to give time to every game I play. Be it jank, AAA, slow, fast, too fast. For me, it’s about letting the art of it all in and letting it take you away. If it doesn’t hit for me, I move on quicker. What has it been like stepping into the shoes of Evan? Pretty easy. I am already an Evan and, as a proud member of the Order of Evans, I have to know at least half of all other Evans’ mindsets and emotions before embarking on a role with such magnitude which, I might add, only an Evan could perform. I hope that explains it. If it doesn’t (and it probably won’t, since only an ordained member of the Order of Evans could possibly understand), then the performance mainly started to take shape after some detailed discussions between myself and Ground Zero’s lead developer James over the course of two weeks. We had live sessions for recording, so there were adjustments on the fly and it was a great deal of fun. I can’t wait to see what they do with all the audio! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/0a1afafcf3ea083250bc22c61bc5ad8783f781b3.png What do you do in order to get in character before you record your lines? Are there any other characters, TV shows, games, films, etc. that you draw inspiration from when becoming Evan (the Ground Zero Evan, that is!)? I think, once you get an idea of what you are good at, you do lean on performances that you loved growing up or just think are perfect moments to try in a scene. I think knowing myself and my range, there is always a part of Hudson balanced by Hicks from Aliens in my performance that I like to tap into. What’s been the highlight of working on Ground Zero so far? I love working on a smaller project like this. I got to know James and what he was going for a lot better from casual discussions about his game and his passion behind wanting to create it. I am honored he asked me to voice such a fantastic character and be a part of his game. It has been a deep wish of mine to be in a game again, and to be in a game set in the same classical style as early Resident Evil games is a dream come true. Once they’ve finished the game, how do you want players to feel about Evan? What type of person is he? I think Evan is extremely sharp but a bit of a joker. He’s very caring but brings chaos when needed. He’s also always a little hangry. If you met Evan in real life, do you think you’d get along? Sure, but I would have to let him poke fun at me for a while. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/00abbdacb9af3496fc3d12316f54d5e5129f54ed.gif

If you’ve enjoyed this dev diary, then don’t forget to follow Evan Sabba on Twitch, X/Twitter, and Bluesky!

Dev Diary #2: Animating Seo-Yeon

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

416d ago

My name is Janz. I’m the animation artist for Ground Zero and I want to talk about my process when animating Ground Zero’s main character, Seo-Yeon.

In terms of the technical process, I first wait for the character design to be completed by the 3D artist. Then, when the model and textures are finished, I make a rig for the character. There are two rigs: one for animating with controls, drivers, and constraints; and the other one for the game, called “deform bones”. There’ll be some test movements before finishing the rigging process but, with the flow of our work, I’m able to quickly proceed to animate the idle or breathing animations. Then next will be the more complex animations such as the movement animations, pain and death animations, etc. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/48f6fa2f5188937f4b4383c3ac9a0daed40582ac.gif When it comes to animating each character, they all have their own differences in terms of their movements, their weight, and their combat, to ensure that they all move in a unique way. Animating Seo-Yeon started with very generic movements, then lead developer James and I discussed together how she should move based on her character and what she’d be doing in the game. When animating her, I got some inspiration from the anime Spy x Family, but not all of her movements were inspired by the anime. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/ The challenging part when it came to animating Seo-Yeon was having to learn how to animate full body characters, because I started my career in first person shooter type animations and realised that I hadn’t learnt how to create fully body character animations properly. But James believed in me, invested in me, and encouraged me to learn and to become a fully fledged animator. The other difficulty for me was exploring Blender on my own and taking a trial-and-error approach, since not all of the answers for the animation questions I had could be found on Google. It was fun though and I’ve learned a lot this way! My favorite animation that I’ve done for Seo-Yeon so far is her stomp, which you can see in the clip below. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/5fc20a0092cafad9e0f2c1a04cb154c1f6fe6901.gif

What aspects of Ground Zero would you like to know more about in future developer diaries? Let us know in the comments 💬

Dev Diary #1: Recreating Taejongdae Beach & Gamcheon Village

Maddie @ Kwaleesteam_community_announcements

444d ago

My name is Sixten. I’m one of the artists working on Ground Zero. I want to talk about the art in the first chapters in the game, which is set largely on Taejongdae Beach and in Gamcheon Village.

The game takes place in South Korea and we try to keep true to the real world places we base our locations on. With that being said we sometimes have to take creative liberty and change some things in order for the game to play better. When we decide on a real world location we begin the process by gathering as many references as possible from that location and try to identify what characteristics that place might have. A good example is Gamcheon village which has really colorful houses and specific landmarks that are present in the real world location and in the game. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/811e3373b738d0c22a58d50e3c153b7bd316570c.png We usually build our levels to match the real world location as much as possible, before adding the horror elements on top. The challenge is always to keep a balance between realism (recreating elements from the real world locations) and creative freedom. Sometimes we have to change things around in order to ensure smooth gameplay and clear visual identity and finding that balance can sometimes be a challenge. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44188915/ed4b8e441d916293df5d845c0f58f2c750c7c797.png The first chapters of the game are all set in the Gamcheon area. And we do a lot of work with lighting in order to tie them together with a cohesive color palette. My personal favorite area in the first chapters of the game is Gamcheon village. It is one of the first areas we worked on as a team and I feel immense pride seeing it all together as someone who worked on the project way back when the game was just an empty world. We’ve put in a lot of effort into making the village represent the real world location by making a lot of assets of objects that can be found in real world locations such as the arch and the fish mural. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340130/Ground_Zero/

Ground Zero news & patch notes

Ground Zero is in the Steam Summer Sale with a 25% discount 🫡

The weather isn’t the only heat you could be shielding from – your fight through post-apocalyptic South Korea starts today!

📆 The sale runs from 25th June to 9th July

Thank you so much for your continued support of Ground Zero!

Ground Zero news & patch notes

Ground Zero is in the Steam Summer Sale with a 25% discount 🫡

The weather isn’t the only heat you could be shielding from – your fight through post-apocalyptic South Korea starts today!

📆 The sale runs from 25th June to 9th July

Thank you so much for your continued support of Ground Zero!

SITREP! A new Patch has been released!

Since the release of Ground Zero a little under a month ago, we have been blown away by your support - it has not gone unnoticed! Every bug report and piece of feedback has been crucial in the post launch period.

Thank you so much for your continued support of Ground Zero!

SITREP

The Ground Zero Soundtrack is out now! 22 Original Tracks composed by Kati Falk-Flores & Jaimee Jimin Park.

Available on Steam here:

Immersive soundscapes that blur the line between game and reality.

Turn off the lights.

Put your headphones on.

Get in the zone.

We’ve been hard at work post launch to ensure your player experience is the best it can be.

We've partnered up with PQube to bring you this bundle!

Ground Zero

Tormented Souls 2

We've partnered up with Headware Games to bring you the perfect 'Survival Horror' bundle!

Ground Zero

Hollowbody

We've teamed up with SFB Games to bring you this retro horror bundle!

Ground Zero

Crow Country

GROUND ZERO - OUT NOW !

Available on PC, XBOX and PS5 !!

To celebrate this launch, we are giving you 15% off for the next 2 weeks!

Utilise your training:

The truth is out there, your mission is to find it!

DONT FORGET TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

SITREP!

To celebrate the upcoming launch on April 16th, we are giving away a $25 Steam gift card!

To enter the giveaway all you need to do is follow this link here, and complete activations.

The more activations you complete, the more likely you are to win!

The giveaway starts today and ends on Thursday 23rd April.

GROUND ZERO IS NEARLY HERE!

OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE IS THURSDAY APRIL 16TH 2026

Your patience has been noted and we've got the green light on the drop date, check out the trailer below!

Wishlist now so that you don't miss out!

Retro-style horror games are known for their steep learning curves and quirks. We put together this guide to help you handle the mechanics and survive the most intense moments.

However, if you enjoy the difficulty of going in blind, avoid this guide at all costs.

Armed Combat

Melee Combat

Safes and Save Points

Safe Puzzles

When You’re Outnumbered

Practice/Training

Getting Lost

Hello again, this is Janz. I want to talk about how I enjoy my job as a game animator, especially when working with weapon animations.

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans about this latest dev diary? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

Happy Halloween, everyone 🎃

Thank you so much again to everyone who has taken the time to give feedback on our demo and provide bug reports! If you have any more bug reports or feedback you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you in the Steam Forums or in our Discord!

We've got one final treat for you, just in time for Halloween 🎃 We've just released the first patch for our demo, where we've revamped some of the controls based on player feedback and also resolved some of the bugs you have reported.

New Features

Bug Fixes

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to give feedback on our demo and provide bug reports so far! Your support and assistance has been invaluable. If you have any more bug reports or feedback you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you in the Steam Forums or in our Discord!

Treat yourself to a good scare this Halloween season 🎃 We’re excited to announce that Ground Zero has been selected for Scream Fest!

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans during the event? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

It’s no trick, we really have two treats for you this Halloween 🎃

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

Hello again! I'm Nathan, the Lead Level Designer at Malformation Games working on Ground Zero. In this dev diary, I'd like to give some insight into the optimization workflow I use when working with the game's levels.

Collision Optimization

Snags

Stairs

Graphical Optimization

What aspects of Ground Zero would you like to know more about in future developer diaries? Let us know in the comments 💬

Forget the tricks, we’re all about the treats this Halloween season 🎃 That’s why we’re treating all of you to a new trailer for Ground Zero, which will be featured during the Galaxies Autumn Showcase this Thursday!

If you want to get a first look at our brand new trailer, you’ll need to tune in LIVE at 15:00 ET (12:00 PT, 20:00 BST) on Thursday October 23rd on either the Galaxies Show YouTube channel or their Twitch channel. We look forward to seeing you there!

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans before or during the big event? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

What better way to get into the horror mindset on the run-up to Halloween than by playing our brand new demo?

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans about our demo or share your demo speedrunning stats? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇

We’ve got a special gift for you this Halloween… During the Horror Game Awards Halloween Showcase, we announced that we’ll be releasing the first public demo for Ground Zero as part of October Next Fest!

Our demo will be publicly available when October Next Fest starts on October 13th. Make sure to wishlist Ground Zero beforehand so you’ll be notified as soon as the demo is available to download!

Want to chat with fellow Ground Zero fans about our upcoming demo? Then head to our Discord or follow us on social media by clicking the buttons below 👇