I am Alive

Released in 2012, this game sees players assuming the role of a lone survivor in a post-apocalyptic world as he embarks on a quest to find his daughter and wife. I Am Alive starts off strong with its gloomy and dark atmosphere, and the gameplay is also brutal with an ever-depleting stamina bar and violent executions. However, the game starts to feel repetitive as you keep executing the same tried-and-tested tactics over and over again to get out of nasty situations alive. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it does fall short of exploring the full depth of these promising mechanics.

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green

Released in 2005, George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead offered strong socio-political commentary in a post-apocalyptic world. It also provided the unique twist that the undead may not be as brain dead as many thought. By comparison, Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green by Brainbox Games is an uninspired FPS where players mow down hordes of zombies in a prequel-esque set-up (which ultimately means nothing in the grand scheme of things). Multiplayer is also a thing and while co-op survival makes sense, other modes like Team Deathmatch don’t. Both were horrible anyway so it didn’t matter.

The gameplay is painfully slow, whether you’re attempting to bash zombies to death or dealing with the clunky gun play. The visuals, from the environments to the zombies themselves, are awful but still somehow better than the audio with its horrendously repetitive music and mundane voice-acting. Sadly, in terms of movie tie-ins, it was par for the course for games released in 2005.

Skybound Entertainment announced earlier today that it had terminated its contract with Starbreeze Studios for Overkill’s The Walking Dead. This was because the game “did not meet our standards nor is it the quality that we were promised”, as per Skybound. In a follow-up statement, Starbreeze have revealed that due to this license-related complaint, the game is “expected to be removed” from Steam in the near future.

“Skybound, the license holder of OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead, has filed a license related complaint with the main digital distribution platform for the Starbreeze game OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead. As a consequence, the product is expected to be removed from new purchases on Steam within a near future,” said the publisher.

If you’re wondering about the fate of season 2 and its content, then there might be some hope. The two companies are currently discussing the same and looking for an “amicable solution with the ambition to finish and deliver Season 2 of the game, as previously communicated.” Starbreeze’s acting CEO Mikael Nermark further stated, “We are deeply sorry for the issues this may cause anyone who has bought the game looking forward to the resolution of Season 2 and are working urgently to attempt to resolve the issue. Please keep an eye on the official OTWD channels for further news.”

Overkill’s The Walking Dead released in November 2018 for PC, with the console versions being delayed to 2019. It released underwhelming responses from critics, and according to reports from behind-the-scenes, the actual game was put together over just a year and a half of development. Overkill Software continued to support it with post-launch story missions, but the game’s sales were lower than expected, having a “negative impact on fourth-quarter earnings” for Starbreeze.

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 has been stumbling from one disaster to another- after a very troubled development cycle, the game launched to disappointing sales, which has led to some serious financial troubles for publishers Starbreeze. There had been reports recently that the PS4 and the Xbox One version of the game – which was originally due out this month but got delayed – had been cancelled, following PS4 owners receiving emails from Sony regarding the same.

However, 505 Games, who are in charge of publishing the console version of Overkill’s The Walking Dead, have clarified that that is not the case- the game isn’t cancelled, just delayed – as announced earlier – to allow development on the product to be finished. The publisher says more news on the game’s release will be shared “as soon as possible”.

The console version of the game hasn’t exactly had a smooth schedule so far. Even before it got delayed out of February, it was originally supposed to launch in November of last year, simultaneously with the game’s PC version, before it received its first delay.

We just wanted to clear the position on the OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead on console and confirm that the game has not been cancelled, purely postponed whilst development is on-going. We will share further news as soon as possible.

— 505 Games (@505_Games) February 20, 2019

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 has been a bit of a disaster for developers Overkill and publishers Starbreeze. Launching to less than stellar reception, the game has also clearly not sold as well as the people responsible for it would have hoped it would, a reality that has also led to some dire consequences for Starbreeze. And according to a report published by Eurogamer, where they collated behind-the-scenes insights into the development process into the game from people who worked on the title (and chose to remain anonymous), a lot of that is down to a deeply troubled development cycle.

Development on Overkill’s The Walking Dead began with the intention of developing it on Starbreeze’s newly acquired Valhalla Engine, but the development team soon realized that the toolset they had on offer was far from ideal for making the game they wanted to make. Developers attached with the project have told Eurogamer that Valhalla was “a piece of shit”, “unworkable”, and “barely 50 or 60 per cent of the way in terms of usability and stability”, and felt like “the engine was fighting against” the developers. 

Once the development team decided to make the switch from the troubled Valhalla Engine and instead make the game using the Unreal Engine, it was already too late into the development cycle. “It was as if switching to Unreal was going to solve everything,” a developer told Eurogamer. “In their minds it was magical, but we had other problems that couldn’t be fixed just by changing the engine. The goal was to produce a triple-A multiplayer game in a year on Unreal. Anybody with common sense knew from the start it wouldn’t be possible. A lot of people expected us to postpone the release of the game.”

The game, however, was not delayed, of course. The team working on Overkill’s The Walking Dead learned the ropes on the new engine even while they worked on the game, and coupled with a general lack of a concrete vision for the project and a definite direction to head in, not to mention poor working conditions and extreme stress, that led to a muddied development process.

The project that was launched was ultimately only worked on for a year and a half in totality. “It’s amazing we even managed to pull off something you are able to install on a PC in a single year,” one of the developers said. “We really tried to fix stuff as much as we could.”

“This is why the game feels so alpha,” said another. “It’s because it is. It’s a year-and-a-half in. It’s a beta game because we made it in a year-and-a-half.”

Yet another person attached with the project was equally critical of the project, and minced no words. “Everyone knew it was going to tank,” they said. “All of us, we put our blood, sweat and tears – and our ***ing livers and pancreases – everything into that game, and no matter how much we would push to do it as best we could, it got shat on. No matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still a turd. It was never going to get any better than where it was. It was always hacked. Everything that was done there was – let’s hack it and put it together. There wasn’t much hope for most people, and what little hope there was was dead by the end of it.”

That paints a very grim picture of what went on behind the scenes during the development of Overkill’s The Walking Dead, and really, it’s just scratching the surface. The full report by Eurogamer, which I urge you to read, is even more grim. 

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is currently out on PC, and was scheduled for a launch on PS4 and Xbox One in February, but was recently delayed. Read more on that through here.

Overkill Software’s first person co-op shooter, Overkill’s The Walking Dead was originally due out on PS4 and Xbox One in November in 2018, but got delayed to February 2019. Though it did launch on PC in November of last year, the game was met with lukewarm critical reception, which was something that not only led to disappointing sales, but also to some serious repercussions for publishers Starbreeze.

Owing to the game’s disappointing performance so far, Starbreeze has now announced (via GamesIndustry) that Overkill’s The Walking Dead’s launch on the PS4 and the Xbox One has also been pushed back. For now, it seems indefinite, with no release date provided for whenever it might end up launching, as the publisher “evaluates and reviews” the game’s performance. 

That said, Starbreeze has said that “further information regarding the future release will be announced at a later date”, which is better than saying nothing at all, I suppose. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more information as this story develops.

Starbreeze AB has announced that its board and the boards of its subsidiaries (including Starbreeze Studios, Starbreeze Publishing, and so on) have filed for reconstruction with the Stockholm District Court. Due to “shortage of liquidity”, the filing has been made to provide time for the company to negotiate “a long-term financial solution and implement changes in the organization and operations.”

Following lower than expected sales for Overkill’s The Walking Dead, Starbreeze reduced its short-term forecasted revenue. This will result in a shortfall of cash in January 2019, though the reconstruction will still provide salaries to employees. However, CEO Bo Andersson will be resigning from his position and immediately from the Starbreeze Board of Directors. Kristofer Arwin will also resign from the board.

Currently, the reconstruction will not make for any other changes to management or the Board. It was noted that that Starbreeze USA, Starbreeze Paris, and other companies could be “indirectly affected by the reconstruction since they are partly funded by the Company.” Though things seem stable for now, Starbreeze’s stock price has fallen by almost 67 percent. Hopefully the company will be able to pull through during this difficult time.

Starbreeze has seen “lower than expected sales” for Overkill’s The Walking Dead, a co-op first person shooter set in The Walking Dead universe. As a result, it’s released a Starter Edition retailing for $30, half the price of the Standard Edition on Steam. It will allow new players to hop into the first season and experience all of its content.

Future story episodes, especially in the ongoing Season 2, will have to be purchased separately. Season 2’s first episode “No Sanctuary” will cost $8 standalone. Prices for upcoming story episodes will vary, though by how much isn’t known at this time. In the official announcement on Steam, Starbreeze stated, “By introducing the Starter Edition, we can now offer a more accessible price point with the flexibility to choose what content to go for as we continue to expand Overkill’s The Walking Dead.

“This is great for players who want to test the waters, or for any of your friends who want to give it a shot.” Though Starter Edition players can play Season 2 content with those who own the Standard Edition, they won’t have access to episode-specific characters or weapons. Furthermore, you need a friend with the Standard Edition to invite you to play – matchmaking isn’t available.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is still in development for Xbox One and PS4. The console versions will release on February 6th, 2019. You can check GamingBolt’s review of the PC version here.