Dead Air
A fast, loud first-person shooter set in a fog-bound mill town that keeps turning into Hell.
In development — Act I is playable and in private playtesting; the Steam Deck build (V1.4) is out to testers and V1.5 is being built
You play Rick “Rattle” Rourke, a washed-up late-night radio shock-jock. One night his station picks up a frequency that drags the whole fog-choked town into somewhere much worse, and the only way off the air is to fight through it, one broadcast zone at a time.
It draws on classic 90s shooters and fog-bound survival horror: the pace of modern Doom, a loudmouth hero in the spirit of Duke Nukem 3D, and a town wrapped in Silent Hill-style fog. The jokes belong to the hero, and the horror belongs to the world.
Dead Air is a working title. The name may change before release.
How Far Along Is It
Where Dead Air actually stands, updated 29 September 2026. The boards below are in priority order: the first is what the current build is finishing, and inside each board the most urgent work comes first.
V1.4 → V1.5
75%V1.4, the Steam Deck pass, is out to the private playtest. V1.5 is well along: the Viking fists, the human enemies, the Foreman and the axe and mic-stand swings all move on motion-captured animation now. What's left is packaging it, playing Act I through in both modes, and a performance check.
Priority 1Finishing V1.5
What the build being worked on right now has to get right before it goes out.
Viking fists — punches that land where you aim
Human enemies and the Foreman on motion capture
First-person melee swings (axe, mic stand)
Steam Deck — 90 fps on the OLED
Package V1.5 and play Act I through, both modes
Priority 2Act I — The Game Itself
The first act of the campaign and everything you touch while playing it.
Campaign — prologue, six maps, a secret seventh, the Foreman
Movement — double jump, air dash, mantling, ziplines
HUD, Rattle's face and the menus
Weapons — guns and three melee weapons with combos
Materials and level dressing
Roguelite layer — seeded runs, Frequencies, Night Shift
Enemies
Viking Mode
Music and voice — the Nordic sound
Priority 3Platforms & Getting It to You
Where it runs, how it's tested, and what comes after Act I.
Windows PC build
Private playtest with in-game feedback
Steam Deck controls — Steam Input, prompts, gyro
Desktop performance (90+ fps on High)
V2 — a new map every run
A playable for supporters
Every build, step by step: Where it stands ↓
The pitch
Speed is survival
You are always moving: dash, double jump, slide, mantle. Health, ammo and armour come from fighting aggressively, not from hiding.
The fog lies
Between fights the town is grey and quiet and you can barely see. Then the sirens start, and the map shifts into a rusted, burning Otherworld where the big fights happen.
Your radio is your early warning
A pocket radio crackles as enemies get close, and each kind of creature has its own static. Switch it off and you are quieter, but blind.
Levels, not an open world
Separate maps with keys, secrets, par times and an end-of-level tally, read out as a call-in radio segment.
Concept art
Early mood pieces that set the look: the fog world in teal-grey and neon, the Otherworld in rust and ember. These are not in-game screenshots.
Where it stands
Updated 29 September 2026. Builds and tests show the day they happened; anything without a date yet says TBA.
- DoneConcept and design26 Sept 2026
The pitch, the pillars, the weapons, the enemies, three sample maps and the art direction are written up, and the first concept art sets the look.
- DoneV1: Act I, "Graveyard Shift" (internal build)27 Sept 2026
The whole first act, start to finish: a prologue, six maps, a secret seventh and the Foreman, the boss of the paper mill. Guns plus three melee weapons with combos, double jump, air dash, mantling and power-line ziplines, and a roguelite layer inside the campaign: seeded runs, Frequencies that change how you play, a Night Shift mode and upgrades for your broadcast booth. Played end to end on the packaged build before we called it done.
- DoneV1.1 (internal test build)28 Sept 2026
Hands and movement checked on every weapon and every map, the maps dressed with real building kits and props, music and voice mixed in, an in-game feedback form, and fixes for arena soft-locks and the Foreman fight.
- NowFirst outside playtest (private)Since 28 Sept 2026
V1.1 went to our first tester outside the studio, privately, and every build since has followed it. Their reports go straight from the in-game feedback form into our issue tracker.
- DoneV1.2: smoother, faster, sharper28 Sept 2026
The materials pass finished, choppy audio fixed, a higher default mouse sensitivity with a finer slider, motion that reads smoothly at speed (frame pacing, a motion blur setting, camera smoothing), and a first Steam Deck graphics preset. Sent to the private playtest.
- DoneV1.3: Viking Mode28 Sept 2026
A Viking Mode for the whole of Act I, rebuilt higher-quality enemies, and a more Viking look for Rattle's face on the HUD. Sent to the private playtest the same day.
- DoneV1.4: the Steam Deck pass29 Sept 2026
A lighter Deck graphics preset and a frame cap that follows the screen's refresh rate, aimed at 90 fps on Steam Deck OLED. Full Deck controls: a Steam Input layout, on-screen button prompts for Deck, Xbox and keyboard, gyro aiming and stick look speeds, and a guard against arenas that stall. Viking Mode sits this build out while its fists are reworked. Played through the whole of Act I on the packaged build and sent to the private playtest; a check on a real Deck is next.
- NowV1.5: better animation everywhere
Proper motion-captured animation for the Viking hands, the human enemies and the Foreman, and for first-person melee.
- NowA Nordic sound
The soundtrack and the voices are moving to a dark Viking sound: war drums, folk and hip-hop. The story stays exactly as it is.
- NextV2: a new map every runTBA
Maps generated from the run's seed, so no two runs through Act I are laid out the same. The V1 levels are already built in modular pieces with this in mind.
- NextA playable for supportersTBA
Once the private playtests say it plays well, supporters get it first, the same way they got The Dark Is Sleepless.
Project Issues & Builds
Straight from the Dead Air repository, refreshed every hour.
Builds
- Dead Air V1.5 · v1.5 · 23b96d28Sep 29, 2026
- Dead Air V1.4 — Steam Deck pass + authored Viking fists · v1.4 · ce629df0Sep 29, 2026
- V1 (internal playable) · v1.0 · fe23e50bSep 27, 2026
Latest commits
- 23b96d28deadair001 V1.5 SHIP: menu footer v1.5 + build.json, Docs/V1_5 (README, PERF15, PROVENANCE)Sep 29, 2026
- d088136ddeadair001 V1.5: snagged enemies re-enter even in plain sight (E1M6 catwalk ledge)Sep 29, 2026
- e6d2e5e6deadair001 V1.5 m2b: FP melee swings on Mixamo axe pathsSep 29, 2026
- ea040a85deadair001 V1.5 m2a: humanoid enemies + Foreman on Mixamo clipsSep 29, 2026
- 529e6461deadair001 V1.5: fist polish (guard height, brass pronation, solid gauntlets, twist frame fix)Sep 29, 2026
- 91e29709deadair001 V1.5 m1: Viking FP rig on authored fists, Viking Mode re-enabledSep 29, 2026
Issues
No open issues right now.
And The Dark Is Sleepless?
It hasn't stopped. Alpha 0.1.2 is still live on the launcher, and fixes for 0.1.3 are already in the project. It slowed down while the studio built the first Dead Air playable; now it is picking back up, starting with the same move to a dark Nordic soundtrack and voices.Where The Dark Is Sleepless stands →