Mother Strain — Seekers of the Wild Type

MOTHER STRAIN

SEEKERS OF THE WILD TYPE

An engineered insect fungus jumped to humans at the Kersey Falls Cherry Festival—leaving the fruit fly's sensory connectome wired inside the host. Sample ripening strains upwind across 24 nights (Solo or 1–4 Co-op) while the mycelium adapts to your tactics over a 3-night rolling memory.

3-Night Fungal Adaptation Procedural Cordyceps Mycology Solo & 1–4 Player Co-op

IN THE STREETS OF KERSEY FALLS

Real 1920×1080 Ultra in-engine close-ups and gameplay clips—heavy trucks and police cruisers crushing glowing Cordyceps mushrooms, volumetric mist chases, and the Queen at the quarantine gate.

A white van ploughing into a red-eyed horde on a fungus-covered street corner

HORDE CRUSH // VAN & CORDYCEPS

Ploughing Through the Horde

A van takes the corner straight into a red-eyed horde; Cordyceps fruiting bodies burst from the pavement where the bodies fall.

A police cruiser with flashing lightbar ramming a horde in a downtown street full of glowing fungus

INTERCEPTOR // POLICE CRUISER

Lights and Sirens

A Kersey Falls cruiser punches through the horde between brick facades, its lightbar strobing over the mycelium.

A tanker truck rolling through a fungus-choked intersection under neon signs

HEAVY VEHICLE // TANKER TRUCK

Tanker Through the Spores

Eight tonnes of steel roll through the downtown crossing, flattening fruiting bodies and anything that walks in front.

A city transit bus cutting through a horde past a fungal bloom at night

MOMENTUM // CITY BUS

The Night Bus

The transit bus holds its lane and the horde does not: a blood trail behind, the mycelium bloom beside.

The heroine sweeping a UV flashlight over a crosswalk overgrown with fluorescent mycelium

UV BEAM // MYCELIUM REVEALED

The UV Lamp

Under the ultraviolet beam the spores and the mycelium light up: the fungus shows where the street has already fallen.

The heroine firing a laser-sighted pistol at walkers closing in by a police car

CLOSE QUARTERS // PISTOL

Point-Blank at the Crossing

Laser on the chest, a pause, a shot: the walkers close in by the abandoned cruiser and every round counts.

The Queen besieging the quarantine checkpoint while the heroine burns her with a flamethrower

APEX SIEGE // THE QUEEN AT THE GATE

The Queen at the Quarantine Gate

Night 25: the Queen calls her horde against the checkpoint's fence while the heroine answers with fire from the street.

The heroine fighting walkers beside an overturned car in a street covered with fungus

AMBUSH // OVERTURNED CAR

Ambush at the Wreck

An overturned car, a stop sign, a carpet of Cordyceps: the walkers come out of the bloom and she holds the crossing.

The heroine torching the waking hive with a flamethrower in a fungal park at night

HIVE WAKE // FLAMETHROWER

The Hive Wakes

Night 23: the nest is sampled, the hive wakes, and the heroine holds the path with fire while the first wave comes through the trees.

THEY KEPT THE FLY'S BRAIN

Every infected host runs a real fruit-fly sensory circuit: a 15,037-neuron spiking subcircuit reduced from the Drosophila connectome. Light, scent, flares and sudden movement drive it the way they would drive a fly, so every tactic you use lands on real neurons. Pick a stimulus and watch the specimen react.

15,037-Neuron Fly Subcircuit MaleCNS Connectome · Janelia FlyEM Press B In-Game

THE FUNGUS REMEMBERS HOW YOU PLAY

The mycelium across Kersey Falls is a single distributed organism. Every night at Ridge Base, it shifts its gene expression based on the tools you relied on over your last 3 nights.

PRESSURE I // THERMAL INCINERATION

OVERUSE PYRES & FLARES

If you repeatedly burn corpses and clear streets with fire, the strain thickens its chitinous crust and pressurizes its fruiting sacs.

→ MUTATION: Thermal Carapace & pressurized spore burst on ignition.

PRESSURE II // PHOTOTACTIC LURES

OVERUSE UV & FLASHLIGHTS

Relying on constant flashlight sweeps and UV beacons selects for altered photoreceptor gain in the host's optic lobes.

→ MUTATION: Photoreceptor sensitization & rapid beam-flanking surges.

PRESSURE III // BALLISTIC ATTRITION

HIGH KILL COUNT & NOISE

Leaving trails of fresh corpses without rotating tactics accelerates fungal ripening speed and recruits high-synapse Lords.

→ MUTATION: Accelerated corpse sporulation & counter-strain inoculation.

BESTIARY OF THE INFECTED

They do not hate you. They do not plot. Their sensory organs feed directly into arthropod navigation circuits.

HOST TYPE 01 // SWARM

THE WALKERS

Townspeople whose motor cortex is slaved to phototaxis and upwind odor plumes. Drawn to muzzle flashes, streetlamps, and the scent of blood.

SENSOR // PR R1–R6 + ORN PLUME

The Lords — 15,037-neuron Drosophila connectome command node

HOST TYPE 02 // COMMAND NODE

THE LORDS (#01–#12)

Each Lord runs an individual 15,037-neuron Drosophila connectome live. When a Lord locks onto you, nearby Walkers align with his heading.

BRAIN // MALECNS v1.0 SUBCIRCUIT

Breeders and Spore Towers — white cocooned mycelial vector

HOST TYPE 03 // MYCELIAL VECTOR

BREEDERS & SPORE TOWERS

Heavily colonized hosts that seed procedural mushroom rings across the pavement and pump toxic spore plumes into the night wind.

HAZARD // AIRBORNE SPORE PLUME

Horseflies and The Queen — apex strain vectors

HOST TYPE 04 // APEX STRAIN

HORSEFLIES & THE QUEEN

Aggressive fast-reflex vectors triggered by LC4 looming circuits, guarding the ancestral Wild Type strain deep inside the orchard and lab.

REFLEX // LC4 GIANT FIBER LUNGE

SAMPLE THE STRAIN. WALK UPWIND.

Every night in Kersey Falls is an expedition from Ridge Base. Bring back viable fungal vials to Dr. Marchetti's lab to reconstruct the phylogenetic tree and synthesize the counter-strain.

PROTOCOL 01 // WIND & SCENT

CORPSE RIPENING & UPWIND STEALTH

You cannot sample a living host. Wait for the fungus to ripen on a fallen body without burning it—then move upwind so your scent plume doesn't lead the swarm to your back.

PROTOCOL 02 // COUNTER-STRAIN

INOCULATE & EXTRACT

Use your gas mask filter in spore zones, sweep with the UV lamp to reveal invisible mycelial traps, and optionally inoculate specimens with Marchetti's counter-strain.

PROTOCOL 03 // 1–4 PLAYER CO-OP

SHARED NEURO-LINKED EXPEDITIONS

Coordinate flares, power generators, radio relays, and sample extraction with up to 4 seekers. Split the swarm's compass ring with cross-directional light decoys.