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.

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, the developer’s take on the popular license in vein of their popular co-op shooter Payday, launched on PC a couple days back, but according to concurrent player statistics, it doesn’t seem like it’s been doing very well at launch. According to Steam’s statistics, the game has hit a concurrent player count peak of just over 12,000 players.

To be more precise, it hit a concurrent players peak of 12,161 players, while currently, at the time of writing, it stands at 11,383. That’s on the low side, to say the least, especially for a game that just launched. Several other games that have launched in recent weeks, such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Football Manager 2019, are well above it- in fact, even Football Manager 2018 is above it right now.

A number of much older games are also outperforming Overkill’s The Walking Dead significantly. The likes of Rust, Don’t Starve, Terraria, and Paladins all have higher concurrent player counts, while even Overkill’s very own Payday 2 is outperforming it, with a concurrent player count peak of 17,606 for the day. Currently, Overkill’s The Walking Dead is not even in the top 40 of the concurrent player charts on Steam.

Speaking of Payday 2, for comparison’s sake, and to give you an idea of how well Overkill’s own games have performed in the past, in the month that it launched, Payday 2 had an average concurrent player count of 16,650 players, while hitting a peak of 57,346 concurrent players. Keeping that in mind, it goes without saying that an Overkill game, especially one carrying a license as big as The Walking Dead, is expected to perform significantly better than it seems to be doing right now.

That said, there are other factors that should be considered as well. The marketing for the game has been a confused mess at best, and awareness about it and its release seem to have slipped under the radar for a large number of people, especially in a season that has been crowded by big-name releases such as Fallout, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin’s Creed, and more. So it’s entirely possible that as time passes and word of mouth spreads, the game’s performance might improve.

In our review of Overkill’s The Walking Dead, we called it “a fun title that is bogged down by a combination of bugs, lack of sign-posting, and confusing design decisions.” Read our full review through here. The game will launch on PS4 and Xbox One in 2019, so hopefully, the most obvious issues holding it back will have been ironed out by then.

In OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead, you are a member of a group of survivors who are just trying to get by day to day. However, a group known as “The Family” sets out to make your life difficult and take your supplies. You then choose from a selection of (initially) four characters, each with their own classes and specializations. From this point on, you are tasked with defending your home base, going out for desperately-needed supplies, or saving other survivors to add to your home base. You’ll have to contend with The Family as well as the hordes of walkers in your way.

"Each class brings enough variation to the table that you can experiment with the different playstyles for a long time and not get bored."

Let’s talk about the good things. The gameplay in OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is solid. The gameplay hook of sneaking around Walkers and staying as quiet as possible is compelling and pretty tense. When you encounter The Family and loud weapons start letting off, you want to end these encounters as quickly as possible or else you’ll attract even more of the horde. Speaking of gunplay, The Walking Dead gives you plenty of options. Shotguns, snipers, assault rifles, crossbows: they’re all here. Along with a whole host of melee weapons. These weapons kick hard when you fire them and the impact of a full-force swing of a baseball bat feels meaty.

The most interesting thing about the gameplay is the option of choice it gives you in every mission. Depending on what equipment you take, you can open up new passages and can proceed through a level in a bit of a different way than you did last time. Deciding whether to stealth and use melee or taking off your valuable yet fragile suppressor in anticipation of an upcoming firefight, these are interesting situations that require a bit of foresight. Missions where you instead need to hold out against enemies in your home base or go out into the world to rescue survivors help break up the tedium as well. Although survivor AI and pathfinding isn’t exactly great, but we’ll get to that later.

Each class brings enough variation to the table that you can experiment with the different playstyles for a long time and not get bored. This also opens up the possibility of synergising with other players cooperatively online. You are able to customize your character through a skill tree and the game operates on a random loot drop system and this is very compelling to see what new and more powerful weapon you get. Though this may be seen as a pretty video game-y idea to implement in a Walking Dead game, the formula itself can’t be denied. You also have a base-management system where you need to upgrade your base and assign survivors to either missions of their own or give them jobs to do within the base.

"Zombies can end up teleporting several yards away at random.  Personally, I’ve experienced situations where my stealth kill key just stopped working for an entire mission."

The game attempts a narrative and to its credit, it provides a compelling enough reason to push through to the next mission. There’s only a handful of actual characters in this title and even fewer fleshed-out ones, but the people that are here do a lot to inject character into missions. Your teammates will quip to one another and it helps bring a little levity to the situation. Sound design in this title is on point as well, with the Walkers shambles being enunciated by the boomshock of shotguns and the adrenaline-boosting score that plays through your mission and adapts to your situation.

However, the entire experience is brought down by the numerous bugs and technical issues plaguing the game. If you can imagine it, it can probably happen. Gun models can disappear when revived. Indicators for side missions never leave your UI. Zombies can end up teleporting several yards away at random.  Personally, I’ve experienced situations where my stealth kill key just stopped working for an entire mission. In a game so dependant on being able to sneak around enemies, this is practically a death sentence. But that’s just a drop in the bucket. Despite the care being put into it in other aspects, there’s a curious lack of polish present in this title.

Though my worst bug by far was during the mission where you have to rescue a member of The Family, Reina. I wish I could have recorded my team’s experience in trying unsuccessfully to get her unstuck from a rack of clothes for about ten minutes. After trying to beat her, shoot her, and molotov her, we finally just let her get downed by a zombie so we could revive her. This worked well until the next room where she went down on a staircase and couldn’t be revived. I eventually found a revive prompt far away from her body and she shot back up to where I was; a few stories above where she laid previously. This was all happening a room away from the extraction point. We managed to coax her outside when it happened: she got stuck on top of a box truck and would not move. The situation made me laugh so hard that I could almost recommend this game. Almost. My teammates and I tried everything before finally typing in our “GG”s and disconnecting.

"Players who can stick through the initial learning curve will find a game that is fun to play and a unique experience in The Walking Dead universe. But even then, this game is in such a buggy state that it’s hard to recommend this title, no matter the fun you can potentially have."

That’s another thing: we had to type because there’s no voice chat in this title. In a game so dependant on teamwork and stealth, this is a huge oversight. With friends, you can use outside applications like Discord and Skype, but this creates a pretty impersonal atmosphere with randoms. Random matchmaking is already pretty segregated because you can’t actually hold onto a team for repeat missions or bask in your success together. Once a mission ends, you’re given your loot and forced to disconnect to the main map. From there, your only hope of matching up with the same players again would be either sending friend requests or just holding out blind hope. This de-emphasis on teamplay stands in stark contrast to the actual gameplay of The Walking Dead.

There’s also just some confusing design choices that make the game a bit more of a slog than it should be. After each mission, you’re sent to the map screen. However, you have to go to your base to collect rewards for completing missions. This is doubly confusing because the base is very clearly set up as your hub where you can purchase new weapons and store them away and would be perfect to launch new missions from. Having both this hub and the map screen seems redundant and only serves to add another (lengthy) load time into the mix.

The game is also not very newcomer-friendly. As soon as you start the title, the first mission you’re thrown into is a base defense mission where you have different crates full of ammo, bandage materials, and planks of wood to board the gates up with. You’re not given any instruction on what to do or how to do it and this philosophy is all throughout the game. You’re never taught how to craft and I suspect many players are still not aware this is even a part of the game. There’s many resources that impact the base-building portion of the game, but they will never be brought up or explained. These are important and game-changing mechanics and they are not highlighted in any way. Players who experiment with these systems will find a hidden complexity to The Walking Dead, but for those players who miss out on all of these mechanics, I can’t even blame you.

Players who can stick through the initial learning curve will find a game that is fun to play and a unique experience in The Walking Dead universe. But even then, this game is in such a buggy state that it’s hard to recommend this title, no matter the fun you can potentially have. Fans of the property may find glimpses of the game they’ve been waiting for, but they’re just as likely to get stuck in a wall. These issues may get resolved with patches down the road, but for now, you could probably stand to wait and pick this game up at a discount later on.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Promising some awesome four player co-op action in the vein of PayDay, Overkill’s The Walking Dead is now available. It’s only for PC in North America and Europe, with the console versions out next year. Still, it’s been a while since we’ve had a game based on The Walking Dead series that wasn’t from Telltale.

To celebrate the release, two new trailers have been released. The latest cinematic trailer provides a look at the four playable characters as they assault a camp and take out zombies. The gameplay trailer provides brief snippets of things you’ll be doing – and killing – in-game. With objectives like scavenging for supplies, finding survivors, and battling zombies, there’s plenty to keep you busy.

It’s also possible to either tackle missions with stealth or rush in, murdering everything in sight. Overkill’s The Walking Dead also provides a good amount of variety with various skill trees for its characters. They also have their own backstories, so hopefully there’s some interesting banter between missions.

SETTING

It doesn’t take a genius or an avid Walking Dead fan to figure out that the upcoming game is set in a post-apocalyptic landsacape brimming with the undead- the property’s name is enough to give that away. But The Walking Dead stories are rarely ever restricted to just one location, and often take place across various locations throughout the North American continent. One of the most prominent locations the series’ story has taken us in the comics (and the TV show as well), is Washington D.C., which is where Overkill’s The Walking Dead finds its home as well.

STORY INFO

Though Overkill’s The Walking Dead is very much part of the larger Walking Dead universe, Overkill have stated that they’re going to go for a completely original story, saying that they’ll be delving into themes and topics that haven’t been a focus in the TV show or the comics. What’s interesting is is that Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, has also been involved in the game’s production, providing the developers with advice and feedback.

SLIGHT FOCUS ON NARRATIVE

With all that said and done, anyone who’s played Payday or its sequel would know that Overkill’s games aren’t ever really about the story, and that’s very much going to be the case in The Walking Dead as well. Though there will be a slight focus on the story and storytelling in the game, the developers have stated that they want the experience to stick close to what people expect a game developed by them, so don’t go expecting a riveting tale.

FOUR CHARACTERS

There will be four central characters in Overkill’s The Walking Dead, and players will have the option of playing as any one of them. These will be the temperamental Aidan, the former kindergarten teacher Heather, an old man looking for his family named Grant, and the former surgeon named Maya.

UNIQUE SKILLS AND ABILITIES

Each of these four characters, as you may have guessed, will play very differently from each other. Grant is an experience hunter and knows the wilderness very well, and specializes in rifles. Aidan channels his repressed anger through melee weapons, such as baseball bats. Heather seems to have immaculate survival skills and it seems she comes with supply bonuses, while Maya, as a former surgeon, functions as your go-to medic. Each character will also have their own individual skill tree.

STEALTH, SURVIVAL, HORROR

Overkill’s The Walking Dead will also try to blend several genres and styles of play together. You can, of course, expect it to have the kind of co-op first person shooting you would expect from a Payday game, while horror elements also are plain for all to see. In addition to these, there will be survival elements thrown into the mix, which also makes sense, given the setting, while players will also have to engage in stealth in certain situations. The inclusion of skill trees and progression signifies that there are going to be RPG elements in there as well, though how emphasized these will be remains to be seen.

DIFFICULTY

In spite of being a game that is built around the concept of co-op play and requires always online connections, you don’t necessarily have to play Overkill’s The Walking Dead with other plays. You can, if you want, play the game solo as well. Thankfully, the developers have confirmed that the game will have scaling difficulty, which means that the game’s challenging nature will move up (or down) with respect to how many players there are in a party.

MISSION VARIETY

The developers have also confirmed that there will be a nice variety of mission types in the game. In addition to daily bounties, weekly challenges, and other timed missions that crop up on your map, the game’s mission objectives will range from things such as rescue missions or finding and retrieving resources to defending your camp against invading bandits and raiders and, of course, herds of walkers (or zombies).

CUSTOMIZATION

Of course, customization is also going to be thrown into the mix. Players can, of course, customize the appearance of their characters, but weapon customization will also play a huge role. In an interview with us, Overkill Software confirmed that The Walking Dead will have 45 weapons at launch, which come with a total of over 250 mods for customization purposes.

HORDE-O-METER

Overkill’s The Walking Dead also has something called the “horde-o-meter” mechanic, which, according to the developers, is what ties the entire experience together. Everything from AI placement, loot distribution, and enemy type and behaviour falls under its umbrella, and this will determine the nature of your encounters in the game. Take on smaller groups of enemies head on, for instance, and you run the risk of attracting a larger horde of zombies, while not doing so to save ammunition and not make too much sound might mean you risk losing members of your team.

NO SPLIT SCREEN

Being a co-op centric game, many people may have been hoping (even expecting) that Overkill’s The Walking Dead would feature split screen support. Sadly, in today’s day and age, split screen is something that’s become less and less common, and The Walking Dead, too, will not feature split-screen functionality. Online co-op is all we get.

NO MICROTRANSACTIONS

Microtransactions were one of the biggest sticking point for a lot of people with Payday 2. Overkill’s The Walking Dead, however, is not going down that road. There will be no loot boxes or microtransactions in the game, not even of the cosmetic variety. “For us, one of the most important things is to stay immersed in the universe,” Almir Listo, global brand director at publishers Starbreeze told us in an interview. “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.”

POST LAUNCH SUPPORT

Overkill’s The Walking Dead thankfully doesn’t have monetization options, but the developers have publishers still have to make money off it. They’ll be doing that in the right manner, though, with post-launch updates and content releases. In the aforementioned interview while talking with us about microtransactions, Almir Listo also said, “When it comes to DLC and updates, our ambition is to keep a balance between free and paid updates.”

CONSOLE LAUNCH DELAYED

This is a game that has been delayed multiple times by now, and though the PC version of the game is almost out, releasing on November 6, those waiting for the console version will have to wait a little longer, until February 6 of next year. In case you’re wondering why this is the case, it’s because both versions are being handled by different entities, with Starbreeze publishing the PC release, and 505 Games handling the console one.

SWITCH VERSION?

Overkill brought over their successful co-op FPS Payday 2 to the Switch, and it’s worked out pretty well for them, so naturally, many people have been asking about whether or not The Walking Dead might follow suit. The answer? A noncommittal maybe. As it stands right now, the developers remain focused on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One release of the game, but a Nintendo Switch version might also end up happening.

Development

Overkill’s The Walking Dead was first announced in 2014, and was slated for a launch in 2016. In 2016, however, the game wad delayed, following which it was delayed once more in 2017, with its final launch slated for late 2018. In August of 2018, the game’s launch on the PS4 and Xbox One wad delayed to early 2019, though the PC launch remained unaffected. This was done because the console versions’ publisher 505 Games wanted to “ensure a simultaneous release of the console version digitally and in stores to achieve optimal marketing impact and maximize sales”.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is set in the universe of the same name created by Robert Kirkman, originally with the comics, which was then further expanded with TV shows and other video games. Though it’s set in the same universe, the Overkill Software have been given freedom to tell the stories they want to tell, and hence will be exploring themes and stories that have not been touched up much in the TV show or the comics. Robert Kirkman has been involved in the game’s development, in terms of providing advice and feedback. Though there will be a slight focus on the story and storytelling in the game, the developers have stated that they want the experience to stick close to what people expect from a game developed by them.

The developers have also hinted that characters from The Walking Dead TV show, comics, and even the Telltale-developed games might make an appearance in their game. Overkill Software have also confirmed that there will be no microtransanctions in the game. They plan to support the game post its launch with content updates and DLC releases. There will be both paid and free DLC releases.

Story

Overkill’s The Walking Dead takes place in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. that is overrun by zombies, called walkers, and features four main characters. One of them is Aidan, a character who is described as having a bit of a temper that he tries to control to the best of his abilities, and instead channels into his melee fighting style for survival. The second character is Heather, who used to be a kindergarten teacher before the walker apocalypse. She used to teach children the difference between right and wrong, and now struggles with her own morality, though still hopes to see the good in people.

The third main character is Grant, and older man who used to spend much of his time hunting wild animals in the wilderness, and writing wilderness guides. He is back in Washington D.C., looking for his family. The fourth and final main character is Maya, a capable survivor who used to be a surgeon before the walker apocalypse, and now finds herself in the role of the group’s medic and healer.

Gameplay

Overkill’s The Walking Dead places a strong focus on co-operative gameplay, though it can still be played solo.Though Overkill’s The Walking Dead is a co-op focused game, there will be no support for split-screen co-op play. In co-op play, players will have to work together and complement each other’s abilities and skills to survive. Overkill Software have confirmed that the game’s difficulty will scale as per how many players are playing it together, which means that it will be harder for four players playing in a group than it would be for a single player playing the game solo. The game is primarily a first person shooter, but will also feature elements from several other genres. It will have horror elements, given its post-apocalyptic zombie setting, while it will also feature survival elements. The game will also have some stealth mechanics.

There will also be RPG elements in the games, including for things like skill trees and upgrade mechanics. Each of the four main characters is playable, and each of them has their own unique abilities and skill trees, such as Maya being a skilled medic, and Aidan being more adept at up close melee combat. As such, there will also be several melee weapons in the game. Melee combat will also be more emphasized, specially in situations where players need to conserve ammunition. In total, there are going to be over 45 weapons in Overkill’s The Walking Dead, which will all be upgradable and can be modified, with a total of over 250 mods in the game at launch.

Each character has something called an active ability, which will vary depending on which character players play as. These need to be activated by scavenging items from the environment and then using them in crafting. For instance, Heather’s innate ability allows her to craft smoke grenades, which can be used to gain the upper hand in both stealth and combat. Aidan can make a flash bang, while Grant can make a molotov cocktail. Meanwhile, Maya’s active ability allows her to make a med bag. Meanwhile, each character also has passive abilities, which grant them buffs and bonuses in certain areas. For instance, Maya, with her history as a surgeon, is more adept at reviving downed teammates. More passive and active abilities can be unlocked as well, while the game’s progression system also allows players to upgrade their base camp.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead will also feature several mission types. Other than main story-related missions, these will include rescue missions, missions that require you to scavenge materials, equipment retrieval missions, and more. Players will also have to regularly defend their camp against raiders and bandits, as well as against walkers. Players can also send other survivors out to scavenge for resources or items, and when and if they find something in the map, players will have to go and retrieve these items themselves. However, these items will be available for retrieval for a limited time only. There will also be daily bounties and weekly missions.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead has received a new character trailer, this time focusing on the third playable character in the game after Aidan and Maya. Grant is significantly older than either and has a granddaughter that he’s searching for. How do we know this? Well, watch the trailer below.

The co-op shooter has four playable characters and takes place in the same universe as Robert Kirkman’s award-winning graphic novel. With unique skill trees and roles, each character must work together to survive. Much like other media in the franchise, executing zombies with stealth melee attacks is a good means to avoid alering the horde. Of course, you could just go around, shooting everything but a bit of planning is necessary to avoid getting overrun.

Furthermore, players will be embarking on raids and other missions to find supplies and survivors. This will help their base survive, especially when it comes time to defend it from the dead…and the living. Overkill’s The Walking Dead has no release date but it’s out this Fall for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead has seen its share of delays but development seems to be progressing smoothly at the moment. The story has teased us about the post-zombie apocalypse in Washington D.C. and in a new dev diary, the studio has revealed how this affected Georgetown. Check it out below.

Along with comments by producer Saul Gascon, we get to see how the overall atmosphere and look of the neighbourhood has been designed. It’s a closer look at one of the areas that players will presumably be fighting for survival in.

As a four player co-op FPS, Overkill’s The Walking Dead will challenge you to complete various missions and raids. Survivors will be rescued and supplies foraged to help build up your base. Eventually, opposing forces will try to attack your base and it’s up to you to defend it. There are four playable characters each with their own roles, stories and skill trees. Teamwork is essential, whether you’re playing stealthy or mowing down hordes.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead is out this Fall for PC, Xbox One and PS4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix_eNs1HXYs

Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight started out rather rough but has received a number of updates and content additions to improve the experience. It also doesn’t hurt that the core experience is appealing to fans of asymmetrical multiplayer and horror games. After launching in numerous Asian regions like Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia and so on, the developer announced that Dead by Daylight has sold over 3 million units since release.

The game itself is intriguing because it pits four essentially helpless players against a powerful killer who must eliminate them all before they escape. The PC version arrived first in 2016 before Dead by Daylight launched in 2017 for Xbox One and PS4.

Since then, Behaviour Interactive had added numerous new killers and maps to the game which include iconic murderers like Freddy Kreuger, Michael Myers and Leatherface. For more information on Dead by Daylight, head on over to the official Steam page and see if it’s for you.