Going Into The Unknown is a Survival Horror / First-Person Shooter developed by TADVGames Studio, with gameplay elements inspired by combining elements from Layers of Fear, State of Decay and Left 4 Dead, and... nothing else really original in-between.
In a sleepy, unnamed town, a young girl is infected by an unidentified virus and inspected by the town's resident doctor, Dr. Adam. When the girl starts showing feral symptoms and tendencies to attack everyone on sight, mostly via biting, oblivious to the girl's condition Dr. Adam had her transferred to a psychiatric hospital. As it turns out, she's carrying a zombie virus...
Weeks later, a Zombie Apocalypse had consumed the entire town, and you're one of the only survivors. Now it's time for you to find an escape.
This game contain examples of:
- Abandoned Hospital: One of the stages is set in the city's now-empty psychiatric hospital where the zombie virus' initial spread began going out of control. Expectedly you'll be blasting away at the undead in it's corridors.
- Always Night: Each and every stage is set at dusk.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: Besides shambling zombies, sometimes you can also come across dead humans from the viral infection. Inspect them and some long, fleshy tentacles from some unseen monster will shoot out from the corpses to lash at you. Those tentacles are too thin for your firearms to hit, but shooting the corpses they're spawned from will make them retract to the bodies.
- Blackout Basement: Almost the entirety of the game is in complete darkness, and your vision is limited to a single circle from your flashlight with plenty of undead shambling in the shadows waiting to ambush you..
- Dead Weight: There's a huge overweight zombie Implacable Man in the deserted streets. Said zombie tanks plenty of shotgun rounds thanks to it's Kevlard and you'll more likely flee from it into a nearby building rather than actually killing it.
- Genre Blind: In the All There in the Manual backstory, it turns out the viral spread went out of control because the resident doctor assumed Patient Zero, who attempts attacking him, was crazy and have her delivered to a psychiatric ward. Then the patient escapes and infects everyone.
- Genre Shift: Most of the game's first half feels like a straight horror game, with you going through stages searching for clues, obtaining weak, melee weapons, and spending most of the time getting clues. If zombies do appear, they're countable on one hand, and you'll inevitably flee from them each time. But halfway through you collect firearms, and the game starts throwing increasing amount of enemies you can shoot at, turning it to a straight FPS.
- Ghost Town: The only person alive and NOT an undead the whole game? You.
- Improbable Weapon User: The giant zombie brute in the streets swings a STOP sign like a makeshift club to whack you up. It's notably the only enemy who uses weapons.
- Monster Delay: The first zombie doesn't appear until nearly an hour of gameplay. With photos, journals, leftover notes and assorted clues hinting you're dealing with "something". And then you finally get to see them...
- No Name Given: The game is a borderline Nameless Narrative; nobody has a name, including your player character, except for the town's resident doctor, Adam, whose actions in the backstory accidentally leads to the outbreak but never really appears in-game.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: You may be a zombie-killing badass, but getting pounced upon by a zombie and you die instantly (complete with a Nightmare Face of the zombie filling the screen).
- Patient Zero: In the backstory, a young girl was infected by the zombie plague that wipes out the entire town ande turns everyone living into one of the undead. You might encounter the girl, now an Elite Zombie who can One-Hit Kill you if you attack her.
- Prison Level: One of the stages. Like the hospital and streets, it's infested with undead as well, including zombiefied prisoners in jumpsuits, policemen and guards.
- Reduced to Dust: Slain zombies will oddly dissappear into a dusty vapor.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The resident doctor, Adam, thought Patient Zero was suffering from mental problems and is unaware she's a zombie, transferring her to a psychiatric ward. It backfires royally when the patient starts zombifying everyone in the ward.
- Zerg Rush: Like most common depiction of zombies, the lowest-level undead in this game tends to mindlessly attempt overwhelming you in numbers.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Before the first stage, the viral outbreak is already in full-swing, and there isn't a single civilain who escaped zombification by the time you reached the town.
