Survivors,
On this first month of the year that will launch God Save Birmingham into Early Access, we felt this was the best time to give you a good peak into what we have planned for the first few months of 2026.
Before we dive into the plans, let’s first go over what we’ve been working on. Over the past months, we’ve been deep in development, iterating on your feedback and expanding the foundation we tested during Pre-Alpha.
What We’ve Been Doing Since Pre-Alpha
1. Content Expansion
Since the Pre-Alpha focused on validating core systems, we felt encouraged to add depth to the existing content while exploring new additional systems after seeing the results. For example, we are no longer just testing combat with the pitchfork and the axe—we’ve added blunt objects to the mix.
Those hammers you used to break down crates? That deer haunch hanging from the ceiling? You can now pick them up and swing them to knock down your zombie neighbors.
We’re also testing new sharp and pointy weapons to properly spill dead blood when needed, of course.
Speaking of sharp things, we’ve also been developing systems that better support the survival fantasy, like weapon durability. Objects now degrade over time and use, requiring maintenance, including blades that need to be sharpened as they dull after much slicing and dicing of limbs.
2. Co-Op and Base Building
As mentioned in the dev log following Pre-Alpha, we fully intend to add co-op to God Save Birmingham. That said, we are currently razor-focused on building out the world and solidifying the core survival experience first. Co-op is a major feature, and we don’t want to rush—so it will be a bit before we turn our full attention to it.
On the base-building front, active development is well underway! As previously shared, our approach is about reinforcing and barricading existing structures, not constructing new buildings. We’re currently designing and implementing zombies’ reaction behavior patterns when they encounter barricades and locked doors.
3. Combat
Our goal for God Save Birmingham is to create a distinctive combat experience. The character should attack in a way that precisely reflects the player’s intended timing and direction while zombies react differently depending on which body parts are struck. To achieve this, we've been experimenting with our own unique approaches to combat design.
During Pre-Alpha, many of you told us how unsatisfying combat felt, largely due to a lack of accuracy between player intent and character action. Since then, we’ve been working on refining the system so that your character now strikes precisely where you aim. Honestly, this has been one of the more technically challenging systems we’ve tackled so far, and we admit we are still not at the final level of polish and refinement.
Internal feedback suggests that melee strikes feel more connected/tightened up, and that combat now feels more deliberate though, so we seem to be on the right path at least. But we can’t wait to hear what our testers think in a future test.
What Next Few Months Look Like
As we move closer to Early Access, we will be focusing on developing and refining core survival content over the next few months. All the systems mentioned above—expanded weapons, barricades, combat improvements, and more—are being prepared specifically for upcoming public tests. You can expect additional tests beyond Pre-Alpha very soon, each test introducing more features, refinements, and improvements, allowing us to validate changes with real player feedback.
These tests are a critical part of how we build God Save Birmingham. So please keep an eye out, as you’ll hear more about these tests soon. Thank you, as always, for your continued support and cheering us on.
Happy New Year (it’s a little late but hey—Lunar New Year is coming up), and let us all make it a great year!
- ODS Team