You never quite know what you’re getting into with any new game based on The Walking Dead, and it’s hard to predict whether they’re going to be great, or downright awful, or just forgettably average. However, Skydance Interactive’s upcoming The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners looks quite interesting. It’s trying some new stuff, and it’s definitely got our interest piqued. With the game’s January 23 launch right around the corner, here we’ll be taking a look at few key pieces of information about the game that you should know. Without further ado then, let’s get started.
VR ONLY
The Walking Dead in video games has tried its hand at a lot of different stuff, from first person shooters to graphic adventure games to co-op focused multiplayer titles. The upcoming Saints and Sinners will be trying something different once again, going all in on virtual reality. The game will be available only on PC (and then later on PS4), and it will be a VR-exclusive title, with support on PC for Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality.
SETTING
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is going for a very dark and atmospheric tone, and is looking to put horror and the desolate nature of its post-apocalyptic world front and centre. It will be doing so in the city of New Orleans, which will serve as the setting for this game.
SETUP
Saints and Sinners’ New Orleans has been hit hard by the apocalypse. It is submerged in flood water, buildings are falling apart, the dead roam everywhere, and the city is being torn apart by problems like famine. On top of that, the survivors are at each others’ throats, which means the living are just as much of a threat to each other as the dead are. It is this brewing conflict that The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners will put players right in the middle of.
FACTIONS
As we’ve mentioned, the world of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is a brutal one, where the survivors of the zombie apocalypse have turned into savage and merciless outlaws. As such, there will be various factions, survivors, and gangs scattered throughout New Orleans, and players will be able to work with and align themselves with any of them. There are two main factions in the city- one is the authoritarian Tower, commanded by Mama, who seek to bring the city under total control, but also bring it stability and safety; the other are the Reclaimed, led by the charismatic Jean-Baptiste, more prone to violence, but looking to live in a world free of shackles of rules of the old world.
TRAVERSAL
Traversal also looks like it’s going to have some level of depth in Saints and Sinners. The developers say that they’ve focused on designing the environments of the game with verticality in mind, so that players will have to get over and around obstacles to get through areas, while also having to contend with roaming Walkers. Players can, in fact, also look for places to hide from the undead in the environments.
PHYSICS
Combat in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is a mixture of stealth, melee combat, and using guns (you can even hide yourself among Walkers to disguise yourself as them). What’s most notable about it, though, is that the game is putting an emphasis on proper physics, to make the combat more satisfying. In fact, players can even pick up objects from the environment if they ever find themselves without a weapon and use that to defend themselves against Walkers.
CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES
One of the most notable aspects of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is its emphasis on player choice and morality. The story is supposedly full of moral dilemmas and tough decisions, and players witness the conflicts of all the factions and help decide the future of New Orleans and all its survivors. Morality is apparently going to be a big deal in the game, and it’ll ask players to decide what kind of a survivor they want to be. The devs also say that many of the game’s choices won’t be about which faction you want to side with, but will instead be much more personal, and related to character-specific stories.
ALTERNATE ENDINGS
As you may have expected, give the game’s emphasis on player choice, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners will have multiple endings. The choices you make will affect not only how the game’s central mystery unravels, but also how multiple conflicts play out and where the story ends up. The developers have also confirmed that eve during the game’s ending, players will have to make some choices that will bring even more variation.
KILLING NPCs
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners will allow you to kill NPCs, but with a couple of caveats. For one, not all NPCs can be killed, understandably enough- some characters who are crucial to the story can’t be touched. Secondly, while players can keep killing soldiers from the Reclaimers or the Tower, both factions will grow more hostile as you kill more of their members, and both will start coming after players with more intensity.
CRAFTING
Crafting will also play a big role in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. Players can find and gather recipes to make weapons, ammo, and other supplies, while most things you find in the world can also be broken down into components, which can then be used to craft resources and makeshift weapons.
SCAVENGING
As you may have gathered from what we just said about crafting, scavenging is also going to be a big part of gameplay in Saints and Sinners. Players will be required to explore environments and scavenge any items they may find that can be useful for crafting or other purposes- from weapon and food to toys and more, everything can be useful in different ways.
LENGTH
What’s most impressive about The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is that it’s looking like it’ll be a very full-featured game. That’s reflected in a lot of what we’ve discussed in this feature- in fact, counting for the main story, side activities, and more, the developers claim that The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners will be over 15 hours long in total. That’s a pretty solid length for this sort of game.
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