Press kit · Halden: The Cordon

Developer: TPMT Games (the games label of The Post Modern Truth)
Release: To be announced; in active development
Current build: v0.1.37
Platform: Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit; coming to Steam
Price: Free
Modes: Campaign Solo, Campaign Co-op, Co-op Persistent City, Dedicated Servers
Players: Single player; co-op for up to eight; servers built for up to fifty
Controls: Keyboard and mouse, or a controller
Made with AI: Designed and directed by a solo developer, built with AI tools: the code, the art (drawn by code AI wrote), the writing and the music (made with Suno, owned by the developer). The sound effects are real recordings.
Website: haldenthecordon.com
Contact: ThePostModernTruth@gmail.com

In one line

A top-down survival game set in Halden, a coastal city sealed for fourteen months. Everyone else wanted out. You drove in.

In a paragraph

Fourteen months ago a fever nobody could name came out of Halden General. The bridges were blown, the trains stopped and a military cordon sealed the city. Halden: The Cordon starts the day that cordon waves you in through the north gate. Search a city that is still full of what people left behind, keep a body that fails part by part, learn which of the factions holding the streets will trade with you, and stay quiet: the sick hunt by sound. Choose your kit from fifty-seven firearms, weapon mods, bows and armour, claim a building and make it a base, live through the seasons, and build onto a car. Play the story in five chapters, alone or in co-op for up to eight, or an open city that never closes, on your own, with friends or on dedicated servers.

Features

Four ways to play: Campaign Solo and Campaign Co-op in five chapters, a Co-op Persistent City open from the first minute, and Dedicated Servers where the world never ends.
A whole city to scavenge: Halden, its districts, the country round it, and the places people tell stories about.
The Armoury: fifty-seven firearms, twenty-four weapon mods, ammunition you find and trade for, bows and crossbows, crafted melee weapons and a firing range.
A body kept part by part, where each part can fail, and armour that protects what it covers. No health bars over anyone’s head.
The sick hunt by sound and light, follow each other and search where they lost you. Sneak, keep to the dark, throw a bottle, or be loud and ready for it.
Factions that run the streets, each with ranks, duties, perks and grudges.
Claim a building and make it a base: beds, storage, a workbench, a rain collector, a generator, a garden.
Cars you can fit with plates, a ram bar, grilles and a roof rack, two express roads in every city, and street decor you can smash. Garages, traffic, bikes and boats are on the way.
Four seasons with their own weather. Snow keeps every track; floods close crossings; summer fields catch fire. Hunt, trap and fish through the year.
Co-op for up to eight, crews of four on your accounts, a friends list shared by the launcher, the game and the website, and a server browser.
Two prestige ladders, the Decay Rank for runs won alone and the Survivor Rank for runs won together, with achievements and things to wear.
Real recorded sound throughout, and eleven radio stations still on the air.
Every sprite drawn in code. Five expansion packs are planned after 1.0.