TurnKey Games unveils Apart, where you play as a severed arm and a zombie child

The indie game studio Turnkey Games has announced Apart, a gory adventure game where you play as a severed arm and a zombie child.

As wacky as that sounds, it’s a serious game with a haunting story of memory, loss, and a
bond persisting beyond death, said the founders of Dallas-based Turnkey Games — former id Software developers Tony Garza and Richard O’Neal — in an interview with GamesBeat.

Apart is a third-person adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic world told entirely from the perspective of two playable characters; a severed arm and a zombie child. (Yes, I had to repeat that again so it sinks in). The game invites players to experience the apocalypse from the perspective of the undead. You can follow it on Steam here.

The arm is a character in Apart, and so is the zombie child. Source: TurnKey Games Apart tells a story of a world plunged into darkness in the wake of a technological breakthrough that repurposes biological remains into an eco-centric fuel. Apart follows two characters: an undead child paired with a fading parental presence embodied in a severed arm and explores a powerful bond that persists into death.

Apart embraces absurdity while balancing horror elements with dark humor that allow moments of playful charm to shine through in a world devoid of hope.

Gameplay in Apart centers on seamlessly switching between its two playable characters.
Leaning into its dark playful tone, the child is a shambling zombie. Limbs can be lost, replaced, and reassembled on the fly, turning dismemberment into a core mechanic.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kaRy8KcsGsI?feature=oembed In contrast the severed arm is agile. Able to explore hard-to-reach areas, slip past enemies
undetected, or puppeteer undead hosts, turning foes into tools for survival. Players are encouraged to think creatively to navigate a world designed to pull them apart.

“We’re making a game that explores a family connection that persists past death and we’re using bizarre mechanics plus one of our favorite settings to do it,” said Garza, creative director at TurnKey Games.

It’s a bright and sunny day in the world of Apart. Source: TurnKey Games ● Play as the infected, experience the zombie apocalypse from the perspective of a severed arm and an infected child.
Two playable Characters:
○ Modular zombie child, fall apart, tumble around, put yourself back together.
○ A nimble severed arm who guides them through their perilous journey. Slip past foes
undetected, navigate hard-to-reach areas, and puppeteer undead beings.
● Explore a hand-crafted, lore-rich world oozing with narrative depth at every corner.
● Puzzles, action, and exploration intertwined with deep lore about the fall of society due to corporate malfeasance.
● Original soundtrack composed by David Levy ( DOOM, RWBY and Justice League)
● Built in Unreal Engine 5. Coming to PC, MacOS, and handhelds.
● Wishlist starting May 6th 2026 on Steam. The hope is to publish the game in the fall.

As for raising money, they’re open to it if the right partner comes along. They’re looking forward to telling different stories in the Apart universe. But they’re not actively seeking to give away their freedom.

Tony Garza (left) and Richard ONeal of TurnKey Games, maker of Apart. Source: TurnKey Games Garza was the art director behind the Doom remake seriers, while ONeal was technical director. They’re two cousins who have spent nearly a decade building games together. They set out to build something entirely their own. A partnership rooted in shared ambition, comradery, and a genuine love for the craft. It’s a studio born from creative and
technical expertise. With games driven by tight collaboration, bold visions, and meaningful player experiences.

“The two of us have wanted to make a game together for a long time. TurnKey Games is the culmination of years of experience and a dream finally realized. Apart is an absolute passion project and we are thrilled to have such a strong debut title,” said ONeal, who is technical director at TurnKey Games.

“We spent years at id Software. I worked on Doom and separated and then started developing an IP. We have had the itch to make an indie game for a long time,” Garza said.

He was there for about 10 years in the art department and left in 2025 to work with his cousin, ONeal, who was an engineer.

“I wanted to make an indie game for a while. I’ve been fan of indie games. We started with a game mechanic, which was built around a character that was modular and could fall part. And we started pulling at that thread. We’re fans of the zombie genre, and we developed a story around it,” Garza said.

Zombies are the survivors in the world of Apart. Source: TurnKey Games Garza said he always wanted to make his own game since he was young.

“That’s why I got into games,” he said. “You want to make games, and eventually you want to build an IP all your own. We are working towards that with Apart.”

But he had good experiences working on the Wolfenstein: The New Colossus and Prey games. On the Doom trilogy, he became the art director for Doom Eternal and The Ancient Gods DLC. On Doom: The Dark Ages, Garza was the design director.

Once Garza set up shop, ONeal left id Software and joined him as technical director. They figured out the scope of what they could accomplish. O’Neal also felt that, after finishing the three games in the Doom series, it was a natural time to move on.

Together, they started without raising money so they could get the freedom to work on what they wanted to do.

“We’re leaning into the unconventional [nature] of our game,” Garza said. “Having the freedom to be able to do that is priceless.”

The team has four core members. There are contractors as well and some student interns form the University of Texas at Dallas. Garza and ONeal enjoy the camaraderie of working together, not just as cousins but as quality-oriented developers.

“Tony’s a full-stack 3D video game artist. I’m full stack on the tech side,” ONeal said. “It’s a match made in heaven.”

ONeal said the team has focused on the Unreal Engine 5 to get high quality but also so the team doesn’t have to reinvent everything.

An arm in the hospital. Source: TurnKey Games This game has no traditional good guys and bad guys. The world has been destroyed, and the zombies are all that’s left. The humans are gone. You play as zombies.

“We’re flipping that trope on its head,” Garza said.

I asked them how they came up with the wacky idea of the, um, sentient arm.

“We’re pulling on a string that we feel is kind of unique. It’s a character that’s completely modular. You can lose limbs, you can reattach them, and then also you play as a separate arm, which has its unique abilities, where it can zip around super fast,” Garza said. “Rich said it earlier that it is like an RC car. I thought that was a good explanation. You can pilot the Undead with it and that’s a lot of fun. The mechanic of falling apart came first.”

I asked them what the story was behind the arm.

“We don’t want to give away too much, but there is a family connection there that persists past death, right?” Garza said.

Besides the arm, you can also play as a young zombie child. As for the story?

“On the wake of a technological breakthrough, the world was destroyed, and this breakthrough used repurposed biological remains as ecocentric fuel,” Garza said. “There’s a bit of commentary there about a technology that’s dangerous. It balances elements of horror with dark humor, you know, and ultimately, it tells the story about these two characters and their relationship in their past life.”

The arm is like a fading parental presence of someone who knew the zombie child. The child shambles around like a zombie, but she can be fully dismembered and then reform without being hurt.

“We turn dismemberment into a core mechanic with her. And then the hand is agile. It can get to hard to reach areas. It can slip past enemies. It has a it has a wide variety of unique abilities, and they play both distinctly. You’ll be switching between the two characters dynamically and seamlessly throughout the game to solve puzzles while under pressure
or just survive in a world that’s designed to pull them apart,” Garza said.

I asked them whether it was indie or triple A. ONeal said it had elements of both. ONeal is using his background in performance optimization, and he wants to make sure the game runs great on the Steam Deck and also looks great on high-end hardware.

“We’re leaning into the gameplay elements. We are shooting above our weight class,” Garza said. “Our game feels bigger than indie it. And the graphics look amazing. The game plays really tight, and from a technical standpoint, we’re going to surprise a lot of our audience with how our game performs and plays.”

The game has a narrative campaign. It might take casual gamers seven or eight hours to complete, and it will have replayability value. The gameplay situations are dynamic, where you can solve a puzzle in one playthrough and have to do something different the next time because you’re missing your legs on the second time.

TurnKey Games is in Dallas, Texas. Source: TurnKey Games “You awaken in a world that’s already been destroyed. You’re piecing together what happened to this world as you go, while recovering your memories along the way and telling a larger story about these characters and how they’ve come to be where they are,” Garza said.

The arm can serve as a puppeteer for the zombies, almost like the rat in the film Ratatouille. The arm can possess a zombie. You can try to slip past enemies and make more progress, but the zombies might come back to bite you later on if you don’t take them out. The girl zombie can work on a puzzle while the hand controls another zombie that protects the girl.

The company is targeting the game at horror fans as well as zombie fans and those who love indie games.

The devs had a long discussion about whether to add co-op mode for two human players. But they decided to focus their indie resources on making a single-player game where the player could swap between two different characters.

Apart is coming in 2026. Source: TurnKey Games As for the state of the industry, ONeal said the tools today are vastly better than a decade ago. It’s allowing indie studios to flourish, but how you use the tools is really important, he said. That’s why his team chose Unreal. Trying to create your own engine is too costly.

But the team isn’t using AI. Garza said, “We are staying away from it. We are doing handcrafted art. There’s no AI-generated content in this game.”

I noted that’s a common conclusion now, as both players and developers seem to hate AI in its current form.

“You don’t want to hold your project or product back by not embracing a technological advancement,” ONeal said. “But at the same time, consumers are just more aware of stuff like that. Gamers appreciate it when they know that everything was handcrafted. We’re proud of that, and we’re scrappy.”











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