Overkill’s The Walking Dead by OVERKILL – A Starbreeze Studio, is a zombie themed, four-player cooperative first person action shooter that attempts to set itself apart from other zombie survival games and with The Walking Dead’s name attached to the title, I was very excited to cut my teeth here with this title. However, I was let down immediately and immensely.
The very first cutscene shows promise and potential; however, the very first loading screen displayed a black screen with no audio that took a long enough time to load that I thought the title had frozen. This minor issue becomes much larger after loading into a lobby just to experience another excruciatingly long load screen to load into levels.
Once in game, the title does a great job of making you feel like you are under pressure. The zombie threat feels very real. However, I am unsure if my immediate feeling of urgency was because of the constant pressure of zombies or because the complete lack of a tutorial system whatsoever left me wondering what I was supposed to do. I had the unfortunate circumstance of matching with someone who had obviously played before and the objectives were cleared often before I had a chance to move to an area and participate in the objectives. This left me carrying items such as barbed wire for the duration of the first mission with absolutely no idea as to how to deploy it.
You would think that experiencing a multiplayer co-op game’s first mission with someone who had played before would be helpful and in most cases you would be correct. However, that is not the case in Overkill’s The Walking Dead. This is because, for some unfathomable reason, Overkill decided to launch this multiplayer cooperative title with no included voice communication of any kind. The player is expected to use a third party software in order to communicate in any other way besides text, which led me to trying to communicate completely through chat like it was 1999.
Finally, the bugs. This game has quite a few of them. Most of which I am willing to turn a blind eye to, as I started my career in this industry as a quality guy, I understand that not every bug is large enough to address. So I was willing to overlook some of the clipping issues, and the occasional broken animation. I encountered a bug that made several of the other issues this title had noticeable and completely ruined this title for me. The third mission has you retrieving a water purification system that was stolen from you in the very first mission. After excruciating load times, waiting ages for my group to be ready, and another endless loading screen the mission has you sneaking past zombies quietly and into an enemy camp to retrieve the part before escaping back to your hideout.
I encountered a stuck spot so harsh that it required me to quit the game to allow the other players to complete the mission. The lack of tutorial was called out because I could no’t figure out how to drop the component need for the rest of my team to escape, I could not ask them for help because there was no voice and I didn’t want to redo the entire level because it felt more like a chore than anything else.
Overall, this game has a lot of issues and it is further dragged down by some bugs that do not help its case. Hopefully, a bunch of these issues will be addressed before the console release. At a $60 dollar price tag, it leaves a ton to be desired. I would not recommend this to anyone in its current state.
My rating: 5/10
Check Out OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead – Cinematic Launch Trailer:
For more information, visit OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead‘s Steam page, https://www.overkillsthewalkingdead.com, and follow the game on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram with #OTWD.
Steam Review
I graduated from Full Sail University with a BS in Game Design. I am a veteran and an avid gamer for the last 25+ years. I have been working in the game industry since 2014 on major titles such as WWE 2K16, Civilization 6 and XCOM 2.
More Stories
Outright Games and Mattel’s MATCHBOX DRIVING ADVENTURES Now Available for PC and Consoles
KEYLOCKER: Turn Based Cyberpunk Action Review for PlayStation 5
BLOODLESS Review for Steam