OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead
OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadis a four player conscientious objector - op hired gun from the makers ofPAYDAY : The HeistandPayday 2based on the Image Comics series - not theAMC telly show . player step into the boots of one of four fibre ( plus two additional unlockable ones , and more come in the future tense ) that were plan with the assistance of God Almighty Robert Kirkman . They are even formally part of the amusing book canon .
The game boast a world map establish in an overrun Washington D.C. and there are ( sort of ) ten story missions useable at launch , constitute Season 1 of the secret plan . An additional nine missions will launch with Season 2 in the nigh future . OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadnot only need that extra content , but it call for huge improvement across the board .
Related : Watch the Gameplay Trailer for OVERKILL ’s The Walking Dead
The theme of the biz is to survive by gather supply and avoid or fighting off undead pedestrian , and the even greater threat of incredibly well - armed humans - known as The Family and The Brigade . Your base camp is literally that , a place that players must ply ( there ’s an sustenance monetary value that goes up the more upgrades you have ) through gathering resources on commission , a place where the playable main characters and economise survivors reside . Three of the ten story mission involve defending this camp .
OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadsees players not only advance through leveling up the protagonists through their unequalled skill trees and gear , but by upgrading the camp hub area , and itswork stations(Depot , The Range , Radio , Clinic ) accordingly . The support character Maya for example , serves as a medick and can drop down wellness for her teammates during missions , and she benefits from upgrading the Clinic at base coterie . AISurvivorsrescued on missions can be assigned to function at that work station , leave overall bonuses for the player . It ’s an interesting meta layer and gives players a few thing to manage . The survivors amount in different archetype like the playable characters do ( cooler , scout , etc . ) and there are missions they can be send out on similar to how someAssassin ’s Creedgames allow players end out assassins on missions in the background to level off them up and assemble resource .
On paper , there are a lot of neat ideas inOVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadand it aims to offer a lot to player without doing any of the core one well . Even with the camp arrangement , all of the NPC are exanimate and static and player are forced to go here in between story deputation to " talk " to the camp leader to get the next mission to pop on the map . There ’s an NPC who sells token here too but they ’re all useless , and the same can be say for the wiped out bounty system . Add in tiptop slow load times and the awful summer camp denial missions ( where all the gates are inexplicably heart-to-heart ) and the experience of just getting to wreak is draining . Themain gameplay loopinvolves play the different missions repeatedly through conversant surroundings , to acquire loot and XP , and to do it again . You ’ll need to a few meter even to level up and succeed in beating late story missionary work since most of the gear on first playthrough is so underpowered .
The trick , it seems , to masteringOVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadit to attempt to defeat the biz design and mechanics and not go to its bug . run alone or with a small group , you’re able to queue up and desire for higher - level player to carry you through . And at the end of each mission , you ’ll get XP to tear down up your character ( each level come with skill points to spend ) and ideally , better gear . Weaponscan drop with different type ofmodsthat can be applied . Almost universally , you ’ll need unity where a suppresser can be equipped since stealing is key to the game , even if the suppressors break almost immediately . During more difficult missions , you ’ll find out yourself waiting a very foresightful time on top of grandiloquent vehicles for downed ally to respawn or for timekeeper - ground events to occur . And sometimes you ’ll be trying to jump-start along other high objects to cheese your mode to the finish line ( extraction via truck ) which would meet the lore if the environmental object and unseeable wall were n’t so inconsistent .
You’re Either Too Weak or Too Overpowered in OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead
During missions there ’s a noise meter at the top of covert , where gunshot , explosions , traps , receiving set , railcar alarms , etc . all add to it . This meter has three levels to it , each newfangled level increasing the amount of infinitely spawning walkers . At max level , the " horde " comes and it ’s extremely difficult to move around and arrant objective . Ammunition is scarce , weapons are watery , and melee combat is n’t effective enough to deal with them all , so it becomes a game of examine to overcome the janky apparent movement controls to dance around or climb around the environment to complete objectives and escape . The end is to keep silent of path , using melee in the main but there will be ineluctable gunfight with human enemies which skyrocket the noise meter , and on the most challenging difficulty level ( OVERKILL ) , the meter autofills up anyway . Some of the playable characters have shaft to avail do specific things during a horde , from deploying smoke or flashbangs , to molotov cocktails that can combust a horde .
What holds the gameplay back is the combat and stealth mechanics are n’t good . They ’re clunky like the canonic control . arm do n’t palpate great and you ’re either way too feeble , or when you get a expert weapon system , then it becomes almost too easy . There ’s no middle solid ground it seems . If you could manage a complete playthrough of the story missions , by then you ’ll have higher horizontal surface melee weapons that can one - shot walkers , and in the late missions or more difficult variant , you ’re going weapons free anyway so suppressors do n’t matter and you’re able to just find fault whatever gun your character is adept at and open fire away .
That is , if you do n’t get disconnect . It ’s not rare to have a full on crash / gulf , and it ’s improbably common to have matchmaking timeouts and mistake computer code . In fact , in every mission you ’ll have stave and framerate frost which seem symbolical of the overall position of the plot . OVERKILL ’s The walk Deadplays and feel like an overpriced early access title . Theconsole version were delayed until 2019 , but the PC rendering that ’s available seems half - baked .
OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadis not everyday or fresh - exploiter friendly . It lacks tutorial or readable information , and has material interface woes . You may not even know you could do some of the thing you could do for the first few hour of play because the game does n’t tell you . regretful , the gameplay up front is too hard and that ’s because the game is designed to make you panic and suffer . It ’s quite fitting given the theme and source material , butOVERKILL ’s The walk Deadtakes it too far with some designing decisions that break logic .
Being tactical and stealthy to clear out an surface area does n’t work in the retentive run , because even in a closed off areas , more Alice Walker come along . It ’s a constant warfare of grinding which does n’t go because the experience of combat is n’t fun . So much of the gameplay involve using scrimmage weapons where there ’s piffling to no variety , and certainly no control over how you attack other than click or view as down for a more powerful baseball swing . There are a variety of weapons on this front however , which offer different event and animations ( sword decapitate better but blunt weapons can push enemies back or hit multiple at once ) .
The state of war of corrasion during missions applies to the meta layer of the biz , maintaining your pack / hub and maintain survivor happy . ammo is valuable , imagination are of import , and ransack you pick up during a mission can be used to craft supplies on the spot - include items ( telegram cutters , lockpicks , etc . ) that aid open loot boxes or locked off areas .
OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead Doesn’t Get All The Details Right
Enemy AI human characters laden with weapons and gear do n’t drop off any of these things and do n’t respond to players or Zimmer frame AI correctly . Sometimes they can dodge bullet train , other times they ’ll walk in front of you without noticing you or just let walkers creep up on them . Sometimes they ’ll see and shoot you through solid objects . The gun battles are terrible inOVERKILL ’s The Walking Dead . Little things like arouse modes ca n’t be selected on automatic weapons , mod descriptions do n’t explain what artillery they can equip on , and the stocktaking bank vault edit inventory without informing players or giving them the pick .
zombi can sometimes disappear or teleport while melt down . aim can sometimes just float in space , and other times mission items like key can disappear completely . That , like a disconnect , stand for players get nothing for their prison term and must restart the mission from the get-go .
Limited armed combat and apparent movement ascendance , and inconsistent rule on what can be climbed and what can not bestow to the problems of the basic gameplay . AI on the footer attack foe works well , and the result and visuals of a horde invading is blot - on , specially with the mixture of zombi type and how some can be dismembered and crawl around or be missing part of their body and facial expression due to damage visit by players .
Outside of the computer error , performance issues in the current version of the game , and clunky controls there are fundamentals inexplicably miss too . OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deaddoesn’t support in - biz voice or ultra - blanket screen monitors .
Final Thoughts on OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead
There ’s play to be had inOVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadonce you get over the hump , especially when succeeding in a mission , finding cool young dough , or just dally co - op with a just group of communicator . Most of the experience is frustrative and at clip , unjust . And it ’s rarefied to play a foreign mission that does n’t have some performance issue or glitch . There are thankfully no loot box or microtransactions of any variety , meaning no crazy cosmetic that do n’t correspond the esthetic ofThe Walking Deaduniverse , but this does n’t help justify the expensive $ 60 terms tag since the secret plan is buggy and desperately needs more capacity and fixes .
OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadtries to do a spate of things , but does n’t do much specially well , or to completion . It ware actor ’s time and forces them through a partly break grind with little reward . With updates and content , this could be good in the remote future but it ’s not quick for retail yet .
More:What is Going on in The Walking Dead TV Series?
OVERKILL ’s The Walking Deadis available on PC via Steam and releases on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One February 2019 . Screen Rant was provided microcomputer code for review .
