Starbreeze has announced Payday 2: Legacy Collection, which bundles the base game along with the past few years of DLC and replaces the Ultimate Edition. However, it also signals a change for the studio. In a recent letter on Steam, CEO Mikael Nermark announced that active development on Payday 2 has resumed.

The Ultimate Edition was meant to provide all DLC, current and future, along with the base game until the next title in the series (Payday 3, which is due in 2022 or 2023) arrives. With this change, it seems that consumers will receive all current DLC up till now but still have to purchase future content. Free content is also in the works though.

Regarding the change to the Legacy Collection, Nermark said that the company was breaking a promise but “We do not do so with ease or take this lightly.” The main reason is to have support for creating new content. It’s worth noting that players can still purchase individual DLC if they don’t want everything in the Legacy Collection. More details on the next update will be revealed soon so stay tuned.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead has had a troubled life. The game launched last year for PC, was met with mixed to negative reception owing to a ton of issues, leading to its commercial underperformance– recently, we even had rumors that the console version of the game would be canceled altogether (though 505 Games would go on to deny that).

Now, the saga has come to the expected conclusion with Skybound Games, the license holder of The Walking Dead games (and a part of Robert Kirkman’s larger Skybound Entertainment), announcing today that they will cancel the game entirely, and stating that it did not meet the “standards of quality that [they] were promised”.

“As of today, we have terminated our contract with Starbreeze Studios and will discontinue all efforts on Overkill’s The Walking Dead,” Skybound said in a statement. “Our creators and their stories are the core of Skybound, and since 2014 we have worked hard to expand the world of The Walking Dead into an exceptional Co-op Action FPS.

“We did our best to work with Starbreeze and resolve many issues that we saw with the game, but ultimately Overkill’s The Walking Dead did not meet our standards nor is it the quality that we were promised. We are exceedingly sorry to our fans and share their disappointment in the game. We remain dedicated to providing our fans with the most premium quality content we can offer, and will continue to look for alternative video game options for the IP.”

It seems, then, that the console version will not be coming either. To me, it is mind-boggling that something so obvious, and such a conceptual slam dunk as “The Walking Dead co-op shooter” managed to get mangled up so badly, but here we are.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead, the co-op shooter based on the zombie franchise, launched on PC last year, with console versions due to launch this year. However, that may never happen. People on Reddit are posting screenshots of emails they appear to be receiving from Sony, notifying them that the console version of the game has been cancelled, and that they are being refunded for any pre-purchases they may have made.

The email specifies that pre-orders from the store are being withdrawn as well, but as of this time, it seems it is possible to pre-order the game from the web store, if nothing else. Presuming there is any veracity to these claims, it is important to remember Overkill themselves have not confirmed a cancellation yet—however, it is also important to remember Sony wouldn’t unilaterally begin to refund buyers unless they had been told to do so by publisher 505 Games (who’re handling the publishing of the game’s console version).

In any case, this continues the unfortunate saga of this game’s continued underperformance, when really, it should have been a slam dunk by any metric.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead received lukewarm reception – at best – from fans and critics alike upon its launch on PC earlier this month, and given that it was already coming out in a crowded season of big releases, most people would have expected that its sales would be affected as a result. Its stats for concurrent players on Steam were quite low at launch as well, and it seems that disappointing performance on the market has carried on for the game.

Publishers Starbreeze recently sent out a press release confirming that sales revenue from Overkill’s The Walking Dead has been lower than expected, and that this has negatively impacted their earnings for the fourth quarter of the year. They are due a licensing fee from 505 Games, who will be publishing the game on consoles in 2019, but since that fee can’t be recognized until after the end of the quarter, Starbreeze can’t count it towards their revenues for now.

“We will not be able to recognize the license fee from 505 Games for Overkill’s The Walking Dead as revenue until after the end of the fourth quarter, while initial sales revenues from the game are lower than expected,” said Starbreeze CFO Sebastian Ahlskog. “This will have negative impact on fourth-quarter earnings, but our target of positive EBITDA for Q4 stands.”

As a result, Starbreeze will now be reviewing their costs and doubling down on their “core business” and “ensuring delivery of our most important games” in order to keep their revenue healthy. “We have initiated a review of our costs to ensure better alignment with our revenues,” said Ahlskog. “We are designing a program towards that end, naturally while keeping a careful eye on revenue development. We must focus on our core business and ensure delivery of the company’s important games.”

That said, the publisher promises that players can also expect improvements to be made to Overkill’s The Walking Dead soon. “This is disappointing, of course, but we have a base to work with in regards to the number of games sold,” Starbreeze Chairman Michael Hjorth said. “We have a pulse of concurrent players, which is essential to future performance within the framework of our Games as a Service concept. The team is working at full capacity to deliver improvements to the game and new content, and Season 2 will be starting soon.”

In our own review, we called Overkill’s The Walking Dead “a fun title that is bogged down by a combination of bugs and confusing design decisions.” You can read the full review through here.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is a new Walking Dead game by Overkill, which I am sure comes as a surprise to you. The game is a co-op action game, made in the vein of Payday 2, set in the Walking Dead universe.

That said, there are nuances to the game that should potentially add layers to it that other similar games of its ilk don’t have. These include RPG mechanics such as leveling, and survival mechanics such as crafting. We look at both of those in this guide.

LEVELING YOUR CHARACTER

Leveling your character is actually a fairly easy process. You do need to remember that each character levels separately—which means that EXP is not shared, and you need to actually play with a character for them to grow and develop. You get EXP for completing a mission (more for completing it successfully, but still some for failing it). EXP lets you level up.

Leveling up also gets you Skill Points, which are used to upgrade your character. To do that, go to “Character” from the main menu, where you will see the character’s skill tree. There are two skill trees available to every character:

• Class, which gives them specific perks and abilities that can be used during encounters and missions (these may be passive or active), and
• Core, which is used to upgrade their core characteristics such as stamina and health

Spend the skill points towards whatever skill you want from here, and that’s it. More skills and higher levels are going to make you stronger, which lets you take on later missions with ease.

CRAFTING

While crafting is a survival mechanic, Overkill’s The Walking Dead makes a lot of concessions to playability. You don’t have to worry about any inventory space, which means each map you start on, you can go around scavenging resources from any cabinet or other point of interest you see wantonly.

Crafting is done for items that are tied to your skills—bandages for healing, smoke grenades for distractions, lockpicks for lockpicking, and so on. Open up the crafting menu, and simply craft the item you want by selecting then ability it is associated with on the screen. As long as you have enough resources, you will craft it without issue. And that’s it. Once it’s crafted, you can use it in game. Go you n

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is a co-op action shooter by the folks who brought us Payday, except set in the Walking Dead universe. There’s a fair few interesting mechanics at play here, but on the whole, this is a very simple game that you can stay ahead of as long as you know what you are doing. Which is where we come in.

Be quiet. If you make noise, you attract attention from the Walkers, and Walkers are always trouble, even when you’re kitted out and have a lot of health. Which also means

Don’t use your guns unless absolutely necessary. Guns make noise—a lot of it. In the world of The Walking Dead, that means that they can be very dangerous to use. It’s generally advisable not to use them, unless you have to—and to try to use them with suppressants or silencers to muffle as much of their sound as possible

Keep moving at all times. The Walkers always spawn close by you, and if you stay in one place for too long, they’re eventually going to find you. As mentioned previously, this is a bad thing, so just… keep moving. Moving at all times also means you can…

Kite the Walkers. No, that isn’t euphemism. Kiting is a basic but effective strategy which involves you leading the Walkers around in circles, and is especially great for not only getting rid of smaller hordes, but also for getting around any larger ones.

It’s a trap. There’s loads of traps in the world of Overkill’s The Walking Dead. Keep your eye out for them at all times, disarming them if possible, and sidestepping them if not. Under no circumstances should you be stupid enough to get caught by one.

Have the Chem Kit equipped. This can positively impact the resource yields you get from completing missions.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is a co-op action game, but it has some survival elements to it as well. These aren’t as involved, thankfully, as they can be in hardcore survival games, but they’re still things to look out for, especially since they can catch you unprepared and come bite you in the ass. This guide deals with getting a handle on them.

MODIFYING YOUR WEAPONS

Weapons you find in the game can be upgraded using mods. You get mods by completing missions. Once you have a mod, you simply open the map menu, and go to the Vault. Here, you will see a list of all your weapons. Select one, and you see a list of all applicable mods. Apply the one(s) you want, and you’re good to go. Keep your weapons upgraded, so you always have the most firepower on hand possible.

BLUEPRINTS

Blueprints are, well, blueprints. These are useful in game items that can make your character more powerful while also giving you options to upgrade your camp.

To start getting Blueprints, first level your Hub to 2. This unlocks the ability for you to take on bounties. Next, speak to Anderson in Georgetown, which unlocks the bounties option in your menu. Complete five bounties, and you will receive blueprints as a reward.

THE WORKSTATION

Once your hub is upgraded enough, you unlock the ability to have workstations (up to four), each of which houses survivors as workers. These workstations can provide vital buffs and perks to your characters. The workstations are:

Radio: Assign scouts here, for crafting efficiency. You get higher resources yield with this workstation.

Range: Assign Tacticians here, to get buffs that increase and optimize your stealth.

Depot: Upgrades your health and vitality. Assign tank survivors to this workstation for maximum effectiveness. Assign Supports here.

Clinic: Allows for more downtime before death, with the final upgrade letting you get incapacitated once before getting perma’d.

To assign more characters to a workstation, you must level up your hub, which increases the capacity of each of them.

There is a lot we’ve learnt about Overkill’s The Walking Dead so far, and it looks pretty great too. The game will be releasing in just a couple of months for the PC, but if you can’t wait to try it out, you can sign up for the game’s beta test, which will allow you to experience the gameplay firsthand. The closed beta for the game for PC will begin on October 9.

The only way to get into the beta test for the game is to pre-order it. Pre-ordering the standard edition of the game grants you one beta code, and pre-ordering the Deluxe Edition will get you four beta codes.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is set to release for the PC on November 6 and will release for the PS4 and Xbox One on February 6, 2019 in the Americas and on February 8, 2019 everywhere else. The console launch, in case you don’t know, was recently delayed to 2019- in case you’re wondering why the game’s PC version launches first.

To learn more about the game and its development, Gamingbolt reached out to the Publisher Starbreeze and Global Brand Director Almir Listo and Global Development Director Saul Gascon answered the following questions.

"We are paying great attention to making sure that everything from characters to the environments are special and have meaning for the player"

First of all, it has been a while since the game was first announced. What took you so long to reveal the game?

Almir: Haha, we’ve been busy! It’s true that the contract for the game was signed about four years ago. In the beginning we started with a smaller core team trying to define what game to make. There are many games in this genre, and it was obvious for both OVERKILL and Skybound that we wanted to make something different, and true to The Walking Dead Universe.

Saul: So we started small, and due to the unforeseen success of PAYDAY 2, we decided to grow the team at its own pace, to keep supporting our existing community of players. After our gameplay and technical prototyping phase, around 2 years ago, we went into full production. We know that gamers have been waiting, and it’s great to see the excitement of those who played it. We can’t wait to start this journey with our community from launch, and see what amazing content we’ll add based on player feedback and requests.

Apart from being an action game adaptation, will this game also place a heavy emphasis on the story, or does gameplay take total precedence?

Almir: As a studio, we live and die by gameplay: our games are fun. And it’s been very interesting to work together with Skybound to add an interesting narrative element to the game.

Saul: OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is a 4-player co-op shooter at heart, where progressing through the story unlocks new levels and missions. The survivors have their own personal backgrounds, and we want players to be interested on how they got to where they are, and what drives them to continue surviving. We have a dedicated narrative team that works in close collaboration with Robert Kirkman to ensure that we continue to build a strong narrative filled with characters and events players will care about, while our gameplay team pushes for fun. It’s quite a unique mix!

As each of the character’s stories are unique, how do these stories play out in the co-op mode?

Almir: We want to be able to offer a co-op experience as true to the universe as possible, wrapped in an original story written together with Robert that is canon to the comics. We are paying great attention to making sure that everything from characters to the environments are special and have meaning for the player.

Saul: As you progress through the game, you will get to know the characters better and better, finding pieces of the story hidden in the world, that will unfold the personal stories of each character, and immerse you in The Walking Dead universe. Also our main rival, Reina, leader of The Family, has her own motivations to confront us and fight with our group. Is she as bad as she seems? Or is there something pushing her to act as she does?

Almir: Much like in the comics, all characters are deeply developed, and the stories do not end after launch; we’re already writing future storylines for players to experience, new places to explore, people to find, enemies to confront… Our post-launch plan builds around our tried and tested method of constantly evolving the game together with the community, like we continue to do with our other games.

What can you tell us about the unique abilities of each of the different characters?

Saul: Your character’s ability is their innate, natural skill in what they do. For example, Maya, having previously been a trauma surgeon, is naturally better at helping downed players get back on their feet after a struggle – this works as a passive bonus. Then we have something called your character active ability, where you need to scavenge the world and find the appropriate components to craft it. What kind of item you can put together depends on what character you decide to play as. For example, Heather can make a smoke grenade that when used, creates a distraction that allows players to either remain unseen or gain combat advantage.

Almir: For us as developers, it’s important that the choices you make for your character affects the outcome of the game. Because it is a multiplayer game, you can achieve greater things together by combining your load-outs.

Fact box – Active abilities

• Aidan: Flashbang
• Grant: Molotov Cocktail
• Maya: Med Bag
• Heather: Smoke Grenade
• Shared abilities: toolkits to open paths in the levels; throwable shivs; bandages; etc.

Our group of survivors will have their own backstory, individual skill trees, squad roles, and combined with the different weapons and other survivors you will play with, we think there will be many different play styles out there.

Will there be a variety of missions for players to tackle? Can you tell us a bit about the different kinds of missions’ players can to expect to see in the game?

Saul: There will be various mission types and maps at the launch of the game. They range from more offensive rescue operations, equipment retrievals and fighting for specific resources; to defending your camp from bandits as well as walkers. Some of the levels are unlocked by advancing through the story, but others will only appear in your map if you take care of your camp, send survivors out to scavenge, and when they find something interesting that requires your attention, then you can go there and retrieve it yourself. But you’ll have to hurry, as these are going to be available for a limited time.

Almir: We’ll also have daily bounties and weekly missions, that in addition to a completion bonus, they offer a spin to the way you normally would play the game. As we continue post-launch our ambition is to not only grow the available maps but also the types of missions you face together with your friends.

"As a developer, we specialize in live support and can’t wait to get started with our post-launch plans together with Robert and our community"

What will the progression system be like in the game?

Saul: The player gameplay is mission-based, and players will receive experience points as they progress through the game. When you have enough experience you will level up, which gives you skill points to spend on your camp and character tree to unlock new passive and active abilities. The bigger the challenge you overcome, the more experience you will get.

How are you ensuring your netcode and multiplayer components will be stable come launch?

Saul: Networking in our game is essential. To ensure the best possible experience, this is one of our top priorities. In fact, our QA teams are distributed worldwide, and they play the game on a daily basis through networks in different corners of the world. So networking testing is part of our daily development process. We are confident it’s going to be a great experience at launch.

What kind of microtransactions and loot boxes will the game? Will they impact gameplay in any manner or are you going for cosmetics only?

Almir: For us, one of the most important things is to stay immersed in the universe. We don’t think microtransactions and loot boxes fit the game. When you play OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead you unlock character skins by playing the game. When it comes to DLC and updates, our ambition is to keep a balance between free and paid updates.

What can you tell us about the end game?

Saul: That’s where it’s at! For OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead, there is no end in sight. As a developer, we specialize in live support and can’t wait to get started with our post-launch plans together with Robert and our community. This is the community’s opportunity as much as ours to pave our own way in The Walking Dead universe. Who do we meet? Where do we go? What do we find out? It is up to us as survivors to make our way in the world.

You have a great pedigree in the Payday series. What gameplay elements are you picking up from there?

Almir: Thank you. We’ve worked on making co-op games for a long time. One of the biggest elements we’re bringing with us is the importance of teamwork, communication and coordination. Although this has proven to be a great recipe, we’ve tweaked it to be even more adrenaline inducing thanks to resource scarcity and increased importance of CQC; using it is not only about stealth, it’s also about conserving ammo for other humans.

" OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead is a hard game; we constantly challenge players to work together and look for intelligent ways to overcome whatever obstacles we put in their path."

Can you tell us about the map design and how it will throw a challenge to the 4 player mode you are going for?

Almir: OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead is a hard game; we constantly challenge players to work together and look for intelligent ways to overcome whatever obstacles we put in their path..

Saul: Our “Horde-o-meter” system is what ties all of the gameplay features together. It ensures that no playthrough will feel the same. From the early phases of the project we put a huge emphasis on randomization. This process starts with AI placement, loot distribution, enemy types and behavior, and extends to the usage of toolkits and interactables in the game world. Every encounter presents a choice and there are consequences for every action. Conserve ammunition and lose a team member or take the enemy head on, risking attracting a horde of walkers. The Horde-o-meter brings all these systems together and allows designers to build on a strong foundation, driving the gameplay for all the levels.

Can you tell us about the customization options the game will offer?

Saul: There will be ways to change your appearance by unlocking skins, new takedown knives, special flare guns, etc. And since this is an action game, the weapon customization plays a very important part of it. We want players to express themselves through their choice of weapons and mods.

Almir: 45 weapons at launch and over 250 mods give a lot of opportunities for players to explore. We will go more in-depth with our weapon customization system as we get closer to launch.

Do you have any plans to bring the game to Nintendo Switch? If not, why?

Saul: Initially, we are focusing on providing the game for three platforms. After that, we will of course see what other platforms it would make sense to release the game on.

Almir: Our other game PAYDAY 2 recently got released on the Nintendo Switch, and we were excited to see the great reception there.

Next gen is coming sooner or later. From a development perspective, what is your biggest expectation from the next PlayStation and next Xbox?

Almir: I think that if you’d ask any one developer, most would have different replies. For me personally, one thing I look forward to a lot is new features that allow us to play games together in ways we never have before. With the type of games we do, the future looks bright.

The Walking Dead is a popular property, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that multiple developers want to take a crack at it. The next upcoming major game based on it is by Overkill, and unlike Telltale’s award winning video game adaptations of the hit graphic novel and TV series, this one is actually an action game.

If you’re curious to see how Overkill is trying to make the most obvious action game adaptation of all time stand out with their own spin, the trailer below might be something that is up your alley. Ostensibly introducing Grant, a new character, it also shows us some of his unique abilities, as well as what looks to be some surprisingly well developed and nuanced narrative heft.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is due out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC some… time. We actually don’t know when. It’s been delayed a fair bit (it was originally due out in Fall 2016), and as of right now, it simply has no date.