Survivors,
As you know we’ve had to work on improving combat after the alpha test, but today, we’d like to share what we’ve been working on in tandem–it’s one of the most ambitious features we've been working on for God Save Birmingham: a dynamic weather system that doesn't just change how the city looks, it changes how you play.
Anyone who's spent time in England knows the weather is an important character of the place — one minute it's overcast and grey, the next a proper downpour has cleared the streets entirely. We wanted that same unpredictability baked into every session. The moment you step out of a safe house to find the sky has turned grey, wind cutting between the Le Moule House and Moore Street and zombies congregating around the well, you should feel it in your gut. That's what we're building toward.
The Visual Side: Painting Birmingham's Sky
This is where a huge chunk of our effort has gone, and this is how it’s looking so far.
Rain has received a lot of love since its volume and pooling behavior all have to scale together. A drizzle should genuinely feel different from a proper downpour, both visually and in sound design.
We've paid particular attention to how rain interacts with Birmingham's urban surfaces: puddles collecting in muddy streets, creeks running, wet stone paths and raindrops bouncing off shop awnings. The town looks different when it's soaked, and we've leaned into that hard.
And of course, fog is a defining weather characteristic of England so we’ve spent just as much energy getting the fog pattern and its various density tuned in to make it feel realistic.
Gameplay Consequences: Weather You Have To Respect
Here's where things get interesting. With any game, visibility matters. In God Save Birmingham, how far and how well you could see in front of you could literally mean life or death.
Fog and heavy rain reduce draw distance significantly, which completely changes how you approach movement and confrontation on the streets. Zombies you'd normally clock at range can step out of the murk with almost no warning. Scouting gets harder. Resource management becomes more critical than ever. Bad weather rewards patience and punishes recklessness — and it creates genuinely interesting decisions about when to move and when to wait it out.
And of course there’s the temperature. Prolonged exposure to harsh conditions takes more of a toll. In the colder weather you will get sicker faster—a reminder that while fair-weathered medieval Birmingham is no laughing matter, the cold turns it into something truly unforgiving.
What's Still in Progress
Weather is an all-encompassing system, and it’s a sizable one. It is something that will touch upon many aspects of survival when the weather turns foul. So it will need more time before it’s fully polished.
We’re also working on additional weather events like the wind, but this likely won’t be ready for the next public test.
We'll have more to share as we get closer to showing this off properly.
Until then, thanks for reading. Stay dry out there.
— ODS Team