Why a tower defense
Wardenfall is about one body and the feel of each swing. For the second game we wanted the opposite muscle: planning. Tower defense is the genre where planning pays off most visibly, because you watch your decisions hold or fail in front of you. Its weakness is length. Most of the genre is built to be played forever. The Rot Hunters keeps the genre's loop and gives it an ending: five levels, then credits.
Two things set it apart from a classic tower defense. Your defenders are people, not turrets, so they move, fight on their own, die and come back. And damage is permanent: a building that falls during a night is gone for the rest of the run, so every level starts from the scars of the one before.
How a run works
The run happens on one map that changes as you go. Before a level starts, you choose which building becomes your base. Then the level alternates between day and night until you have survived all its nights.
| Level | Nights | Entrances | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 1 | Walkers and Runners |
| 2 | 4 | 2 | Brutes and the first champions |
| 3 | 5 | 3 | More champion types |
| 4 | 6 | 4 | The horde nearly surrounds you |
| 5 | 7 | All sides | Every boss at once |
Each level ends with a boss and counts as a checkpoint. If you lose, you keep the experience you earned and retry from the start of the level, with the buildings you had then. You lose a level if the horde destroys your base, or if all four survivors are down at the same moment. These numbers come from the design document and may change once the later levels are played.
Choices before dark
Every dollar and every skill point is a trade between three things: defenses, economy and heroes. During the day you can hunt the small groups of zombies roaming the map for extra cash, experience and intel about the next wave, or ignore them and let them join it. You repair and fortify buildings, place your crew, and spend skill points. Levelling up earns them, and they carry over from level to level.
Each survivor has a personal skill tree with six branches, such as a gadget build, a damage build or a tough build. The crew also shares a Defense tree that unlocks fortified walls, spikes, rooftop positions, extra floors, repairs and turrets mounted on abandoned cars. The design aims for more than one way to win a level: turtling behind fortifications, aggressive hero play, or an economy that snowballs.
The crew
| Survivor | Fights with | Gadget | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medic | Pistol and a shove | Medikit that heals an area | Toughest, and nearby allies slowly heal |
| Shotgunner | Shotgun | Grenade | Hits harder up close |
| Rifleman | Assault rifle | Deployable turret | More accurate behind cover |
| Marksman | Sniper rifle | Recon drone that marks a target | Longer range from high ground |
Survivors attack whatever is in range on their own. You step in to move them, pick targets and aim gadgets, and you can pause at any moment to give orders calmly. A fallen survivor returns to the base after thirty seconds.
The horde
The basic zombies are Walkers, fast Runners that come in packs, and Brutes that break through walls. Champions add a twist each: one explodes when it dies, one makes the zombies around it faster, one stuns your crew with a scream, one splits into three when killed. Four bosses close the levels, and all four come together on the last night of the run.
Where development stands
Work on the game itself started on 29 September 2026. In its first week, the first level became playable from start to finish in our test builds: the neighbourhood map, the crew and their movement, Walkers and Runners, the day and night cycle with pause and command, cash, experience, roamers and intel, the four gadgets, choosing a base, building damage, a minimap, the personal skill trees and the Defense tree. Levels two to five, the champions and the bosses are next.
There is no public build yet. When there is one, it will be linked from this page and announced on the devlog.