Take on the Zombie Horde in ‘Drop Dead: The Cabin,’ Out Now on Meta Quest 2

Whether you’ve been immersed in the Drop Dead universe since VR’s drop-in mobile phone days or this is your first foray into this world of intense survival horror, you’re in for a treat because Drop Dead: The Cabin is now available on Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro.

An immersive love letter to classic 1980s horror, Drop Dead: The Cabin boasts high-pressure combat alongside survival and roguelite elements. Difficult by design, no two runs are ever the same as objectives, encounters, key locations, and pickups are remixed with each playthrough. You can team up and work closely with a friend to dispatch as many zombies as possible, or split up to tackle multiple objectives. Through it all, you’ll die—a lot—as you develop your skills and gain experience to perfect your escape.

To celebrate today’s launch, we spoke with the dev team at indie studio Soul Assembly about the birth of the studio, how the game came to life, and more.

Peter Hancox, Project Director: My first job in the gaming industry was at Eurocom working on Harry Potter Kinect (2012) as a gameplay programmer. I was drawn to the role as I’ve always been fascinated by cutting-edge human/computer inputs and the opportunities that brings when building new experiences. The Kinect was a very novel and ahead-of-its-time interaction device—a device where you can track and use your body motion to create a digital skeleton and control games. It was amazing to have the opportunity to explore and build out completely new game mechanics using things like voice control, hand tracking/motion, and 6DOF full-body tracking. I was hooked.

After that, I moved to Leamington Spa to work on mobile games at a studio called Pixel Toys. The smartphone market was beginning to take off, and the capabilities of devices were just at the tipping point of being able to deliver compelling 3D games. Again, playing around with new input devices and solving new gameplay problems was incredibly rewarding. I was lucky enough to work on several popular games during this time across a range of genres. Meanwhile, I was keeping a close eye on the developments of a startup called Oculus. I was playing around with early development kits, and my mind was blown by the potential of where the technology was heading. I knew I wanted in. I jumped at the chance at getting the Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition. For the first time, there was a marketplace to sell your VR games, and it was using some of the same target smartphones that we were familiar with when developing our mobile game titles. I made some demos and used it to evangelize VR. After interest began to build, I was asked to build a prototype for the original Drop Dead for Gear VR, which we continued to develop into a full game, launching Halloween 2017.

Over a number of exciting years, VR hardware continued to develop and we kept updating Drop Dead to take advantage of the new gameplay and interactions/control opportunities. It was incredible to have the experience to bring the game to Rift and Touch controllers and play/build for 6DOF VR—experiencing 6DOF VR with hand-tracked controllers for the first time is something I will never forget.

As a studio, our endeavors with XR continued to broaden. I was lucky enough to bring ARKit modes/features to some of our popular mobile games, and we were grateful to have our work showcased at the Apple Keynote Event that year.

Then Quest was announced, and it was clear it was going to be a game-changer. Drop Dead: Dual Strike Edition was a launch title. We built lots of new gameplay features adding a really playful level of interaction to the combat that is only possible in 6DOF VR. We followed that up with Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister a couple of years later, which was our first free movement game we had built as a studio.

At that point it was clear that Pixel Toys had two areas of focus: XR development and free-to-play mobile. We decided to divest the XR-focused teams, and in April 2022 we announced our new company, Soul Assembly, with the focus being solely on making awesome games for XR.

PH: There were three main lessons learned that informed our work on Drop Dead: The Cabin.

1. Don’t underestimate the effort required to achieve a smooth experience.

With high frame rates, high resolution, and two views to render, targeting standalone VR is a considerable undertaking. With Cabin, we knew we were aiming for a visually impressive game, with high enemy counts, high dynamic item counts, and the simulation having to be networked synced. Experience on our other titles helped massively to prepare us, but it was still a considerable challenge.

2. Work with the community early.

Cabin was created by listening to the feedback of our Drop Dead: Dual Strike and beta players. It’s a reimagining of the DDDS multiplayer game mechanics, inspired by modern VR controls and design philosophies.

With Cabin, we worked with our community to get data of how people like to play, how they like to move, etc. We ran a number of private beta tests and got a lot of feedback from DDDS players and content creators. This helped us really fine tune the experience for our target audience. We’ll continue to work with and engage our community beyond launch as we update and add additional content.

3. Sometimes less can be more.

Battle Sister was a huge learning experience for us. It was the first game we’ve built to feature free movement and all the added complexity that brings when considering content creation, AI, and game pacing. It was a step we needed to take as a developer.

A pain point we’ve learned from is that supporting many types of significantly different locomotion (free-locomotion, teleport, dash, etc.) and reloading options (manual, arcade) can drastically change the gameplay, split focus, and massively increase the design and QA work for any particular bit of content. The enemy AI logic and game pacing had to work across all setting permutations, and we feel we ended up making too many gameplay/balance compromises to ensure everything worked. With Cabin, we focused on less overall options but put the efforts into really fine-tuning the experience and balancing for the options we do have.

PH: Cabin is set in the same universe as DDDS but is not a direct sequel. Located in a remote forest, the game’s primary setting takes us to a long-abandoned cabin. Players soon discover that it’s a covert test site/facility and former residence of DDDS antagonist Dr. Monday! This is where he spent time in his younger years perfecting his evil technologies and viruses featured in the earlier games. In Cabin, players can expect to get a playful glimpse inside the mind of crazy Dr. Monday and come face to face with his monstrous creations.

PH: Drop Dead: Dual Strike was designed to be players’ first VR zombie shooter. I think we nailed that. The campaign is a lot of fun, but we found that the horde multiplayer mode in particular has had great levels of engagement and retention and seems to really resonate with our players.

Although Cabin can be played solo, the core design is a reimagining of the multiplayer aspect of DDDS. With Cabin, we asked ourselves what Drop Dead would look like built for more seasoned VR players with current expectations while maintaining the DNA of the series.

We built the game around free locomotion, which enables a new type of Drop Dead experience. Our fans are very vocal about taking Drop Dead off the rails. We do, however, have sections of our sublevels that are more path-like—these are specifically designed to feel more like classic DDDS campaign gameplay. We felt this is a great complement to the 360-degree gameplay open areas that make up the key locations of the map.

We’ve built a game which is co-op first: lots of co-op interaction, communications, tactical choices, and combat opportunities. In Cabin, players have to manage a number of objectives during a run, earning a currency called research points, which they can use to unlock new gates/areas and supply containers, and finding fuel to power a generator and backup battery, which they have to also protect and repair. There are also objectives specific to our sublevels called test sites, which have a number of interesting variants.

Gareth Morrison, Lead Artist: Our creative visual influences were taken from dark and atmospheric horror movies and posters of the 1980s whilst tapping into the current retro ’80s revival trend that has permeated almost every area of modern culture today. I must admit that I got a little bit obsessed by ’80s neon pink, which became the color of our Compound Y that courses through our zombies’ blood

Using the lore of Dr. Monday’s infamous thirst for terrifying experiments, we wanted to blend Grimm Nordic fairytale creatures of the dark woods into our already established zombie theme. This gave us some great opportunities to have fun coming up with the mad creature types we have in our game.

There was also a nod towards classic ’80s horror movie plots where we find ourselves lost and scared in the middle of dark woods with no other refuge than a creepy, somewhat malevolent cabin. Think Evil Dead, Sleepaway Camp, Friday the 13th, etc. The list is endless.

GM: I worked closely with the creative director with the aim to create something new whilst keeping the look and feel within the Drop Dead universe. Our baseline art style was rooted in the comic horror style of the original Drop Dead game, which gave us a great jumping-off point when approaching Cabin’s art direction. It was a very open and cooperative process at the start of development. The entire dev team was invited for their input. As the game developed and took shape, there were moments that instantly galvanized the tone of the game. One of these moments was when Giorgio Carlino, our amazing sound designer, produced the game’s music, which in turn influenced the direction of the game’s art style even further.

Giorgio Carlino: “Fantastically realistic.” Those two words have been the central pillar and aesthetic guideline when creating the sound and music for The Cabin. With its dark tones and retro style, the main audio references have been all the horror movie gems from the ’80s. Carpenter, Argento, Raimi, and Cronenberg are just a few of the great minds on whose movies the entire audio aesthetic has been based.

We tried to reproduce the organic and sometimes lo-fi quality of the sound effects used in those films through layered samples that were sometimes recorded using cheap microphones. Then, I usually post-processed the samples using emulations of all the classic audio hardware: tape recorders, tape delays, valve compressors, and all the vintage audio equipment one can think of. But the audio for The Cabin wasn’t only meant to aid the visual aesthetic, with its gritty and sometimes goofy tones. Rather, it’s been developed and integrated in a way that aids the gameplay and the overall immersion of the game. For example, with the help of the design team, we come up with an interesting breathing/awareness system for the enemies.

The same kinds of approaches have been used when developing the music themes. Heavily influenced by artists both from the classic ’80s, like Carpenter, Goblin, and Tangerine Dream, and more modern years, like Lorn, Justice, Makeup and Vanity Set, and Kavinsky, the music has been created using emulations of old classic synths, subsequently post-processed to add a touch of modern sound.

There’s really a lot going on sound-wise in Cabin. From subtle hints that give useful clues to the player to good ol’ growls and booms, the whole audio creation process has always been centered around merging the past with the present.

Jim Norris, Lead Designer: It took 18 months from ideation to launch. We’re a small, family-style studio, and several of us have ended up doing the VO for the game. When I play the game with our Art Director, who is a character in the game, and myself, who is also a character in the game, all talking can make things a little hectic. Is that the Pilot or Gareth? Am I thinking aloud what my character is saying, or was it me? There are also a few VO outtakes that made it into the final game as a little Easter egg for us in the studio.

Derby Munns, Community Manager: Whilst developing The Cabin, we ran several playtests, and with each test, the reactions of the players have been amazing. However, with our latest test, where the game had been in a state very close to completion, the reactions were incredible, to say the least. One of the best reactions in particular was from a tester that had followed us through every round of testing and was already super invested in following Drop Dead: The Cabin.

This individual took part in our most recent playtesting session in which we supplied access to the game for a few days, to ensure everyone testing was able to jump in and shoot some zombies at least once whilst they had access. We were apprehensive about how much gametime people would accumulate, thinking that it might be only a few hours due to the timeframe given for the test. Well, this individual racked up a whopping 20 hours over the course of a few days, and all they had to say was: “I lived in the cabin from the time I put that headset on.”

Joseph Waterworth, Publishing Manager: *Spoiler Alert!* There’s one part of the game where players will venture out of the main cabin area towards one of the research areas. During this section of gameplay, the intensity reaches a fever pitch where hundreds of zombies and creatures of the forest are swarming you from all angles. Whilst difficult, it’s an absolute adrenaline rush that I’ve never experienced in a VR game before. Towards the end of this section of the game, the climactic round begins when a familiar type of zombie from Drop Dead: Dual Strike appears. Let’s just say at that point it doesn’t always end with a successful extraction ;)

JW: Drop Dead: The Cabin is the modern extension of the Drop Dead universe that we have been building since the very early days of virtual reality. VR was an obvious choice for us as we wanted to build an immersive, intense, and realistic experience where players physically feel the adrenaline of surviving a night in an eerie cabin in the middle of a forest being overrun by creatures. This just wouldn’t be possible at the same level without VR.

David Solari, CEO: We’re excited about all the cool things we plan to add to Cabin over the coming months. We’re even more excited to see what the player feedback is because that will likely turn our plans upside down and send us in new and exciting directions. Our second team is working on a well-known IP with a big partner, and we’re looking forward to that being revealed. Finally, we hope to grow to a third team by the end of the year and continue striving to make Soul Assembly a fantastic, fun place to work.

DM: For players who want to hear about updates as they go live, chat with our team, or simply want to make friends, join our Discord! We have a truly welcoming and friendly community that’s always helping each other out.

Throughout development, the community has been continuously supportive, which has kept the morale of the team high on tough development days. For this, all of us at Soul Assembly would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has followed us on this journey, whether you joined us from Drop Dead: Dual Strike or joined the community more recently. Thank you!

We’re excited to share a little slice of our post-release plans with the community! We have released the game with two points of interest (the stone circle and the radio tower), and one of our many plans for post-launch will be to add another point of interest to the map. We’ll be releasing a roadmap hinting towards our plans for the future of Drop Dead: The Cabin, so make sure you watch this space!

Grab your gear—and a trusted friend—and take on the zombie horde in Drop Dead: The Cabin today.