Them and Us is a 3D third-person Survival Horror game, developed by TendoGames (which consists of two core developers and about 3 to 4 supporting asset makers) and released for PC through Steam's Early Access program on September 7th, 2018. The game entered version 1.0, becoming feature complete and playable from start to finish, on March 9th, 2021, and leaving Early Access on September 28, 2021. Originally starting out as a Fan Remake of Resident Evil 2 (predating the official remake by some time), similar to Daymare 1998, the devs instead started work on making an original game.
The game notably features the ability to be played either with classic old school Survival Horror fixed camera angles, or a more modern over-the-shoulder perspective (this has to be selected at the beginning of the game and can't be switched midway through a playthrough). Over-the-shoulder mode gives you much more control over movement and aiming, but there are fewer item pickups found throughout the game as a balancing measure. The ability to play from a first-person perspective was added on the game's full release, as a paid DLC.
The story takes place in 1978 and follows Alicia, a woman imprisoned for 9 years for a horrific crime, who survives a prison transport bus crash and wakes up in a creepy mansion in the middle of a forest. Alicia quickly finds the mansion infested with zombies and must survive, while discovering the ties of the mansion and its occupants to herself and her missing daughter Emily.
Them and Us contains examples of:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: There are some sections of the game in which you play as Paul, a private investigator also exploring the mansion.
- Elite Zombie: Skinless zombies (known as Walkers) with much higher health and who always run appear as Boss in Mook's Clothing encounters.
- Emergency Weapon: You find a knife early on; similar to many of the earlier Resident Evil games, it is possible to kill zombies with it without taking damage, but doing so requires very advancing dodging techniques and can be risky and impractical. Mostly it's useful for breaking open barrels for extra items. You can kill zombies with it fairly reliably in First Person Mode (as you don't get animation locked and can continue moving), but there's still a small chance of screwing up and getting grabbed.
- Homage: The first half of the game is one to the original Resident Evil, while the second half of the game evokes Resident Evil 4, right down to changing from fighting mindless zombies to fanatical robed cultists.
- Multiple Endings: The game has 5 different endings, depending on how much of the mystery you were able to solve and various actions you took. Specifically, whether you try to flee the island by helicopter by yourself, try to flee with Paul (which itself results in 2 different endings depending on whether or not you found the note explaining what happened to Paul's detective partner), or decided to go deeper into the island and confront the Big Bad.
- Older Than They Look: Alicia looks great for someone who should be in her late 30's to early 40's and couldn't possibly be younger than her mid-30's.
- Really 700 Years Old: It's indicated the cult leader is this, most likely due to his manipulation of dark powers.
- Resources Management Gameplay: Like many Survival Horror games, you have finite ammo and must decide which zombies you absolutely need to kill, and which you can leave alive since you either don't have to backtrack through their area or can reliably dodge around them. In fact there's only enough ammo in the game to kill about half of the enemies (in contrast to many Resident Evil games where you have just barely enough to kill everything on Normal difficulty, provided you search everywhere and don't miss), so you do need to manage it wisely.
- Save Token: You need to use a vinyl record to save your game. These records can be found around the mansion, but are in limited supply (noticeably more limited than save ribbons in Resident Evil).
- Shout-Out: The game has numerous shout outs to the Survival Horror genre.
- In the first save room you can find a snowglobe with a diorama inside depicting the first Alone in the Dark game.
- Many of the puzzles in the early sections of the game are taken straight from the early Resident Evil games.
- The secret 5th ending is a comedic Shout Out to Dino Crisis.
