+1 Outbreak Fedora Files: What Lydia Knows
I have a feeling some may be interested in what exactly this game is. I’d to start from the beginning… Dead Drop Studios is a true indie studio consisting of only three full time employees. They started by making the original Outbreak game, which was the result of the question, “What would a Resident Evil game look like if it had released on Super Nintendo?”. Since then, they continued releasing new installments of the Outbreak series as PS era 3D survival horror games using Unity.
However, the pandemic and the recent industry crisis has put a toll on the small studio. So in order to keep afloat, they have taken drastic measures, from running crowd funding campaigns to finance their next big projects, switching to UE5, and creating spinoff games like Dinobreak (spiritual successor to Dino Crisis), Railbreak (an on rails shooter), and Fedora Files, a three part visual novel series.
The first of such releases is What Lydia Knows. It stars the titular Lydia, a detective in Cypress Ridge in the late 90s. The game centers around the case of bodies being found in the same place around the same time each year for the past five years. For some reason, the records for which have been hidden so as to not arouse suspicion. The lead detective is sent to investigate the latest occurance and has gone missing. So it’s up to you, as Lydia, to find your superior and discover the true story of the bodies.
The game acts as a “before the Outbreak” prequel that directly leads into their next game, Outbreak Shades of Horror: Chromatic Split, which releases Friday. It’s meant to tell the story of how the Outbreak came about and the people involved in it’s making. Chromatic Split picks up right after the Outbreak begins, with you in the shoes of Lydia once again.
I have tried to support these devs through their crowd funding campaigns, buying their back catalog, and watching their weekly twitch streams, which has won me copies of their last four games, including What Lydia Knows and a couple Switch copies of games, completely free, just for watching their streams.
