The world as you know it has ended, and there are very few of you left to heal this broken place. You have made friends, and you have made enemies, but you are still here to tell the tale of survival. Hordes of the living dead surround you at every turn, and the survivors have turned on each other. Very few of us fight to survive every day in communities. This is our beta impressions of Overkill’s The Walking Dead.
From Developer Overkill Software, and Publishers including Starbreeze Studios and 505 Games, comes the newest installment into the world of the Walking Dead. You start the game and are immediately thrust into your missions, and the first one is a doozy for sure. You immediately have to protect your base from walker attacks that were brought on by “The Family”. This group wants what you have, and you turned them down and threatened to kill them. This doesn’t bode well for intergroup relationships. As far as groups are concerned, yours is holed up in an area of Georgetown that looks like an industrial district. You have set up fortifications to keep people, and walkers out of your area. There are signs of life as you see plants growing all over, and survivors that are there to offer you weapons, storage, and other services.
Generally when you look at a game like this you wouldn’t think about classes being a thing, however, Overkill’s version does have classes for combat. There are four to be precise, the Tank, Scout, Tactician, and Support. Each class comes with its own base setup for weapons for melee, and range. Whether you want a sniper rifle or a crossbow, each of these classes will give you different base assets to use. Don’t want to use the base stuff, but like the class? Good news. You get to modify your loadouts however you want to. I played as a tank with a sub-machine gun as my backup to my baseball bat, and pistol. Each character gives you a different playstyle, but even with that, the main game has its own playstyle that you need to get used to.
Stealth. Stealth is important in the television show, and it is especially true about Overkill’s game. Walkers are heavily attracted to sound, and that is why you see our survivors always using bats or knives first, and guns second. Crouching as you walk, and hiding behind things works sometimes as well, but more often than not once you get close to the dead they turn and launch an attack at you. If they catch you they will try to bite you. You can attack them or push them away and use your main weapons on them. This game is solo or co-op, and the co-op you have to be very careful with your strategies. If you have a good crew then you can sneak around and take everything out. If you have a bad crew, well, you may end up trapped in a garage full of walkers like I was. Opened the door and walked in, and a random player who joined me closed the door behind me. It forced me to pull out my best gun and start blasting into the crowd.
Gameplay mechanics are fairly standard practice in this game. You have a primary weapon, a secondary, and a melee weapon. You also get a flashbang type throwable, and bandages to recover health. When you shoot your weapon the bullets go straight to their target. You must obviously get a headshot to kill these walkers too. Everything has been taken into consideration, just like the show. The walkers move around slowly, but can also get a little bit faster if they are intent on getting to you. The story is good, and having to complete missions makes this feel like the actual Walking Dead universe. No offense to that Daryl Dixon game a few years back. This one is the one we have been waiting for.
Overall, Overkill’s The Walking Dead is the game we deserved as fans. I for one will be spending lots of time playing this once it is launched fully. You will want to get friends who have the game as well to group up with you if you don’t want to worry about the things I mentioned earlier. Currently, the game is still in beta and will be available for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. If you preorder the game you get right into the action of the beta. The release date for PC is November 6, 2018, while the console release dates are February 2019.
Note: Our copy was previewed on Steam with a code provided by PR.
