Tanks, APCs, fighter jets and navy versus zombies in the trailer for large-scale strategy game Ebbtide

ProjectAlive opened the Ebbtide Steam page and released an official trailer. The game is a zombie survival RTS. No exact release date has been announced yet.

Players lead Task Force 1 "Ark" (TF-1), humanity's last carrier strike group. The war begins in Los Angeles, from the Hollywood Hills to the city port, then the campaign moves beyond the city and spreads across the world.

The main hook of Ebbtide is that the operations map is the battlefield. Zoom in on any street with no loading screen and you land in the middle of a 3D pixel art fight. Pull the camera back out and the battle keeps going. There are no separate missions and no hidden auto-resolve, and every dead soldier, killed zombie, and destroyed building shows up on the map.

The operations map can be paused or sped up to 4x. While time runs, 15 districts of Los Angeles slide from holding to crisis, and then to lost. Not everyone can be saved, so players have to decide who gets evacuated first. Only hordes within sight of your troops are visible.

At the map level, players can:

• Order National Guard, LAPD, and Los Angeles County Sheriff units to hold position, delay the enemy, or fall back, and call in Marines from Camp Pendleton.

• Send truck convoys and helicopter groups carrying supplies, troops, or refugees.

• Evacuate units and survivors cut off behind the front line before the horde reaches them.

The enemy is far from static. The city has been overrun by a million zombies, maybe more. They are controlled by a hive mind called Nexus, which ambushes convoys, blocks roads, besieges bases, and hunts down isolated squads. Players always get a warning before an attack and can reroute, retreat, or call in fire support straight from the map.

On the battlefield, zombies climb on top of each other to get over walls and reach rooftops. Some grab onto helicopters hovering low over the ground. Soldiers killed by the horde rise as zombies themselves.

Troops can be commanded or controlled directly. Squads get formations and combat modes, and the roster includes tanks, Bradleys, LAVs, Humvees, and Apache and Viper attack helicopters. Soldiers can fast-rope from Black Hawks, or helicopters can land on rooftops to drop off squads. Pressing TAB switches to direct control of a soldier, tank, or helicopter.

Another piece of the game is building forward bases. Players pick a location and build HESCO and concrete walls, add gates and scaffolding for wall defense, and place machine gun nests, CIWS, mortar positions, an ammo depot, a refueling point, and lights.

Without supplies, the fight can't go on. Soldiers, vehicles, and aircraft burn through ammo and fuel, which can only be replenished at bases you hold. Wall materials are delivered by trucks with hook lifts or slung under helicopters. The horde hunts convoys and blocks roads, so supply routes have to be kept open.

Results from the California campaign carry over into the global campaign. People, troops, vehicles, and supplies delivered to the port are loaded aboard the Ark and become the starting force. From there, players choose which regions to help, move the group's guns and aircraft within strike range, and restock at friendly ports.