- Concise Development Diary #7 - 23 September 2026
Hello, everyone!It's been a while! Sorry for the silence, but development slowed down a bit over the summer (both deliberately and not).But now i'm back full time!By the way, development on EMPTY SHELL 2 is, in fact, finished : )So, am i ready to release it?Are we talking a few days? Weeks? Months?More likely months, but not many (not MONTHS, just months).But friends, it's just me, and solo development takes a lot : )So, if you're wondering why, if development is finished, the game isn't being released yet, there are two reasons:first of all, the game is currently being tested by a couple of trusted friends, and day after day they've been giving me all kinds of feedback. And this lead to anywhere from a few hours to a few days of extra work, but even in just a couple of weeks there have already been several improvements that i would never have thought of on my own (not to mention the bu…
- Concise Development Diary #6 - 23 June 2026
Hello, everyone!How you doing?It's time for a new concise dev diary on EMPTY SHELL 2 : )tldr; I'm currently working on the achievements, which are the last major task remaining. A potentially final first version is already complete in English and Italian. It will still need to be localized into all other languages and thoroughly tested, but after that, we should be getting very close!The past few weeks have been pretty intense, especially when it comes to writing the lore and distributing it across the various items that can be found throughout the locations (and in some other forms).Since the game's progression is very different from the first EMPTY SHELL, allowing (and very often requiring) volunteers to visit and revisit different areas of the island multiple times, putting the story together has been... interesting, to say the least : )Also, sometimes you think you're almost done an…
- Is that a light at the end of the tunnel? - 29 April 2026
Hey, everyone!How you doing? Yesterday was a big day for the development of EMPTY SHELL 2 : ) I can finally say that I've completed one of the last major tasks on the list: the final dynamic spawn of all the game's equipment!And I can say that's a big relief, considering it took longer than expected, especially compared to ES1, but i was kinda expecting that, given how much larger the setting is and how much more equipment there is in the sequel. So yeah, maybe that's a light i see at the end of the tunnel : )At this point, aside from optimization, small improvements, and small fixes that will need to be made, the main remaining macro tasks are distributing the lore across the various collectible items found in levels, the pre-level paragraphs, the content of the terminals volunteers will encounter during their mission and, finally, creating the secondary quests, which I've already star…
- Little detail: shell casings - 14 April 2026
Having grown up with the first generation of FPS games (Doom and the so called "Doom clones", as every FPS was called back then), I remember how amazed I was as a child when I first saw in Duke Nukem 3D shell casings being ejected from the pistol, or shotgun shells during the pump-action animation.And i was way more impressed when shell casings started to remain on the floor in the second generation of FPS games (i'm thinking of Soldier of Fortune, though there might have been something earlier).I'm not kidding, a detail like that back then (along with bullet holes on walls!) could make a game successful, it was that revolutionary (before every game started to implement it). Recently, I realized I had never even thought about including this detail in EMPTY SHELL, so I quickly fixed that : ) Just a small detour of a few hours before getting back to the main work (still distribution and b…
- Concise Development Diary #4 - 24 March 2026
Hello, everyone!How are you? I'd like to give you some updates on the development : ) tldr; I'm working on distributing and balancing (a lot of) equipment and (a lot of) enemies throughout the game, and later on I'd like to have some beta testers. So, I've finally finished all the locations that volunteers will go through during their mission in EMPTY SHELL 2, even the secondary ones : ).But I'd like to make an important note about this: unlike the first EMPTY SHELL (which, with some adjustments, could work this way too), ES2 is built to be expanded indefinitely in terms of levels and missions, considering its extraction nature and the explicit presence of side quests. I chose this approach with the idea of significantly expanding the game after release, in the following weeks and months (and maybe even years, who knows... I'd be more than happy about that).This doesn’t mean there will…
- Concise Development Diary #3 - 12 February 2026
Hey, everyone!Has been a while since the last dev diary, so i thought it was time for some updates and i'd like to let you know what i'm working on right now!First of all, i'm happy to share that all the new enemies and bosses are done : ) This is a huge relief, cause they are one of the hardest tasks, and i'm happy with the result. I'm sure i'm not done forever with bosses and enemies and i'll design more in the future, but for a 1.0 release i think we're good!I'm also quite happy with the amount of new content i've added in terms of weapons and gadgets, also thanks to all the feedback you've given me in the weapons and gadgets posts here in the community hub. Some of them (or some inspired by them) have now a place in the game. Very interesting ideas, some with unique mechanics that really enrich the gameplay. And, most importantly, i'm pretty much done with the progression and interc…
- From Weapons to Gadgets - 28 January 2026
Hey, everyone!Thanks for all the ideas you shared in the last post :)I've designed already a few weapons based on some of your suggestions...I hope you'll like wandering the facility armed with one of those!I've also turned one of the suggestions (that sort of glue gun that slows enemies down) into a gadget. This way, you can use it, back off, and then immediately fire the equipped weapon while the enemy is slowed, without the need of opening the inventory and manually swapping weapons.Also, I loved the suggestion about the PTRS-41, that I didn't know, and I discovered it's basically impossible to reload until the mag is empty. That's an interestic mechanic...And by the way, I'd like to bring back a poll, but this time about gadgets.You've probably already tried the various drones, turrets, the Detector, the portable robot equipped with a Laser Melter (which also has variants equipped w…
- Community Weapon Ideas - 29 December 2025
Hey, everyone!I'm taking a break from creating locations to go back to working on weapons.I've already added quite a few new ones, but I'd love to know if there's anything in particular you'd like to see in EMPTY SHELL 2!Real world references or fictional ones, anything goes!Even if they're similar to weapons that are already in the game, that's totally fine. I'm a fan of games with lots of weapons that sometimes differ from each other by just a small detail, like being slightly more accurate, or more powerful but with a smaller magazine, etc.Common weapons, uncommon weapons, special behaviour weapons, craft-only weapons, whatever you like! : )Feel free to throw in any ideas you have, I'm curious!
- One-handed weapons animations - 26 December 2025
Hi, everyone!I hope you’re enjoying the holidays : )I wanted to share a small update about something I added a few days ago.I've added a new set of animations for volunteers when using one-handed weapons (for example semi-auto pistols, revolvers, short SMG, etc.).I postponed it for a long time, thinking it wasn't a particularly significant addition, but after a quick test I realized it actually contributes nicely to the immersion.Here's a quick video showing the result.Speak soon!
- Concise Development Diary #2 - 3 December 2025
Hello, everyone!Even if the release is not quite around the corner yet, I'm happy to say that I'm roughly 75% done with the locations for EMPTY SHELL 2 : )Now, even once I reach 100% of this, there will still be other things left to do, but I'm trying to focus on this task because I consider it by far the longest one, especially when it comes to environment design.Every single container, shelf, barrel, cable on the floor, squeaking ventilation fan, rock in a field, every object the volunteers will encounter during their mission is placed by hand, and I'll admit that sometimes I probably spend way too much time deciding whether a metal container works well in a certain spot or if it would look better 0.24 units to the right!My wrist is not particularly happy about this : (It would actually be possible to script various things to speed up the process, but the result wouldn't be that verte…
- Dynamic start screen image - 30 November 2025
Hey, everyone!Just a quick update that makes the main menu camera image dynamic, to add a bit of flavour.I was working on this on the full version and i thought it made sense to bring the feature in the demo as well! (Even though the images aren't final yet)And, if you're enjoying the demo, please add EMPTY SHELL 2 to your wishlist. It can make a huge difference for the future of the game :)
- Concise Development Diary #1 - 4 November 2025
Hello, everyone! I just finished a task I'd been procrastinating on for way too long... mostly because I needed to gather the courage to tackle it, knowing I'd have to go through dozens and dozens of files all at once : ( But at least it's done now : ) I completely reworked (code wise) the ammo system: a necessary step to allow each weapon to use different types of ammunition, such as Medium Caliber Armor Piercing, Medium Caliber Hollow Point, etc. Weapons now have an actual "magazine", regardless of how much ammo you have in your inventory (which makes perfect sense, but up until now it wasn't this way, given the gradual evolution and changes from the original EMPTY SHELL). This means that when you find a weapon, now you'll also find some ammo loaded inside it. For this reason, now you'll have 2 new actions while browsing the inventory: an "unload ammo" action, for example to loot the…
- More than mere wooden toys - 16 October 2025
"For New Year’s Eve 1954, some of the scientists in the facility had planned a treasure hunt: they hid several Kokeshi dolls throughout the different areas of the Facility.No one ever had the chance to look for them.If only to hold on to a shred of sanity, I’ve decided to find them while completing my tasks.I have a feeling those dolls are something more than mere wooden toys."
- EMPTY SHELL 2 joins The Indie Horror Showcase 2025 - 14 October 2025
Hello, everyone!It's always a good time for horror games, but in October they feel even better : )I'm happy to announce that EMPTY SHELL 2 will be part of The Indie Horror Showcase 2025, an event entirely dedicated to horror indie games, packed with new titles and hidden gems! Don't miss it on October 23rd at 10 AM Pacific Time : ) https://www.indiehorrorshowcase.com/
- Quick Unity fix - 6 October 2025
Hi everyone! Just a quick update to fix the recent security vulnerability issue that may affect all Unity games built in the past few years. The volunteers already have their own problems... they don't need any more vulnerability issues.
- Concise Development Diary #0 - 17 September 2025
Hello everyone!I thought it was time to share some news on the development of EMPTY SHELL 2 :)Over the past few months, I've been working a lot on the levels, and I'd say I'm roughly at 50% done with the environments. The interesting part is that, even in its current state, the sequel is already bigger than the first EMPTY SHELL :)But level design for the sequel is more complex than in the original. In the first game, each level was kind of a "standalone" entity: any key items required to progress, as well as the puzzles that need to be solved, were always tied to the area currently being explored.In EMPTY SHELL 2 things are different: given its extraction nature and the possibility/necessity of freely entering and leaving the various locations, a deep interconnection has formed between different levels.Volunteers may often need to extract from an area in order to find a key item needed…
- Demo Difficulty resetting bug - 11 August 2025
Hey everyone,just fixed an issue in the demo that sometimes was causing the difficulty to reset to "Easy" : )
- QoL + (a couple of) Modifiers - 11 July 2025
Hey, everyone!I realize that some players prefer more action and don’t feel like messing around with terminals and command-based navigation. I didn’t want to just add a simple option entry, so, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, I created a new view called "Modifiers".From now on, it’s possible to disable terminals and replace them with a more immediate interface. I also added a modifier to randomize the starting stats of each volunteer (HP, armor, stamina, melee damage buff/debuff, and critical chance), for those who feel like testing their luck a bit. :)At the moment, there are only these two modifiers, but I’ll be adding more in the future (there will definitely be many in the full version).As some of you suggested on Discord, I also switched the wording from "required/owned" to "owned/required" in the Crafting Stations, which seems to be the standard in most games.One la…
- Just another abomination - 1 July 2025
According to Ainu folklore, Akkorokamui アッコロカムイ is a giant monster with a tentacled form, said to dwell in Uchiura Bay on the island of Hokkaido.But what lurks beneath the pier of the island's old harbor is merely another of the abominations created by the Entity.
- Maintenance Tunnels - 16 June 2025
While most areas will be accessible via the rail transport system or by sea using a boat, some zones won't be directly connected to the hideout and will require passage through the Maintenance Tunnels to reach them.These tunnels will sometimes be lit by emergency lights, while at other times they may be completely shrouded in darkness.Additionally, since the areas reached through the maintenance tunnels are more remote, they won't have extraction zones. To return to the hideout, you'll need to go back through the tunnels.
