OVERKILL's The Walking Dead

 PC
Metascore
51

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 24 out of 34
  3. Negative: 9 out of 34
  1. Game Informer
    Nov 14, 2018
    45
    Overkill’s The Walking Dead plans to dole out content in seasons, so the current batch of missions will soon expand. But dramatic reworking of most core combat and mission systems are necessary before the game could be worthy of a recommendation. The premise sounds promising for fans of cooperative play, zombie action, and the taut survival storylines implied by the license. The execution fails to meet the needs of any of those groups. You’re better off heeding the warning – keep this menacing door closed, and leave the zombies to their gnawing hunger.
  2. CD-Action
    Feb 6, 2019
    40
    The Walking Dead license was wasted on an ugly game that plays crudely, offers little content and trails behind a decade-old Left 4 Dead. [01/2019, p.56]
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  3. The Overpowered Noobs
    Nov 21, 2018
    40
    OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead does a decent job of immersing players into a universe of the undead, but lacks innovation and is ultimately brought to its knees by the overwhelming amount of bugs and lack of player-friendly systems.
  5. TheSixthAxis
    Nov 20, 2018
    40
    Overkill’s The Walking Dead could have been something special, but it finds itself dragged down by poorly implemented and designed systems. There’s flashes of what could have been, and there’s a chance that Starbreeze will turn this game around in the coming months to rebuild from a poor launch, but as it stands I couldn’t even recommend this game to the most hardcore of The Walking Dead fans.
  6. New Game Network
    Nov 16, 2018
    40
    Overkill's The Walking Dead squanders whatever little potential it had with poor presentation, unenjoyable gameplay, technical issues, and simply poor design.
  7. Areajugones
    Nov 15, 2018
    40
    OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is a complete disaster, a game that doesn’t work from any perspective. Its narrative is terrible, its progression system is pointless and its gameplay is repetitive.
  8. GameGrin
    Dec 3, 2018
    35
    I really wanted to like this game, and after the beta I was hoping there would be more to it than what they were testing. Unfortunately, there’s not, and there’s absolutely no way I could recommend buying this game. If you could pick it up for £10, sure, but four times that? No way.
  9. GameSpot
    Nov 13, 2018
    30
    From its restrictive mission structures, unbalanced difficulty and frustrating means of progression, The Walking Dead struggles to justify the time it requires from you. It's a collection gameplay blueprints stacked upon one another without thoughtful consideration on how they might cohesively work together, wrapped up in a dull presentation and mundane combat that very rarely excites. The Walking Dead is a mess of scattered ideas and a lack of direction, and there's no reason to make sense of it all.
  10. Slant Magazine
    Nov 12, 2018
    20
    Imagine reaching the final minutes of an hour-long mission only for your connection to drop and, in turn, your progress to be lost. Overkill’s The Walking Dead certainly stokes the player’s despair, but not the sort that its developers intended.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Destructoid
    Nov 7, 2018
    There's a lot of time for the studio is smooth things over, build on the season concept and trim some of the fat. For now, be cautious.
  2. Eurogamer
    Nov 15, 2018
    There are flashes of promise in this first-person shooter, but this is a mostly uninspired, unpolished waste of an opportunity.

Awards & Rankings

50
#50 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
84
#84 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
5.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 201 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 82 out of 201
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 201
  3. Negative: 93 out of 201
  1. ireviewbadgames
    Nov 7, 2018
    3
    Update: Fanboys with buyer's remorse and shills might be able to spam Metacritic (Really, this game is a 10/10 perfect game for all of you?Update: Fanboys with buyer's remorse and shills might be able to spam Metacritic (Really, this game is a 10/10 perfect game for all of you? How interesting.) But it's harder to fake Steam reviews. Go check that out instead.

    I'll start with some positives: the game looks impressive on the surface and has a solid franchise to stand upon. While the Walking Dead television show is a boring trainwreck built on the suburban couple's over investment and stubbornness to break a bad habit, "Overkill's The Walking Dead" is primarily based on the comics, which still hold a glimmer of hope.

    The game is bland, boring and repetitive. The camp system is a bust and not at all interesting. (Think Payday safehouse level of uninteresting) There isn't enough variety, the talent/skill trees all end up the same eventually and they need to balance weapons: all these symptoms add up to one diagnosis- the game is severely over-priced and needs some serious polish. At it's current state, it's a $35~ game, and yes, even with the "season 2" missions planned. But all of that is obvious, I want to touch upon points that other people might not talk about.

    The worst part about "Overkill's The Walking Dead" is seeing incredibly obvious mistakes that the developers shouldn't be making at this stage in their career. These are the folks that made Payday- they already have understand the basic framework, but still make blunders like not having proper voice communication settings. In the beta, it was constant open-mic, no choice on the matter. Now, it's tied to your steam settings. . . If this was their first game and they were some two-man indie company, that wouldn't be an issue, but these guys have been at it for years. It would be like if Blizzard just up and decided not to include a screen resolution setting.

    Another minor mistake is that there can be multiple copies of characters in a game where that obviously doesn't work. You can have three Grants or Maya Twins- had these been faceless schmucks without deep background lore or personality, it would have been fine, but this isn't that kind of game. Again, these devs made Payday. The kicker? Payday already HAS a system, in which no two players can be the same character. I have to assume that Overkill simply didn't have time to implement the system or some similar excuse.

    Experiencing "Overkill's The Walking Dead" is like being a professor and watching your student fail the same course two semesters in a row. (three semesters if you count that God-awful RAID game) You keep hoping that they'll learn from the previous time, but they just don't and there's not much you can do except sigh and shake your head in quiet disappointment. Refund the game if you can and if you can't resist, wait until it's 50% off or better. No one should be shoveling their cash into a furnace, even to keep warm for the winter.

    As a side note: They say the game won't have lootboxes, but we've seen that song and dance (and eventual betrayal, followed by hasty backtracking from community backlash) before with Payday. Let's see if they can actually keep that promise this time. One can hope.    … Full Review »
  2. ekammob
    Nov 7, 2018
    10
    Thank you Overkill!
    Great game! I really see this type of game will expand over the next few years.
  3. nirvana82
    Nov 7, 2018
    9
    This game does not deserve bad reviews just because in E3 they showed a video gameplay where graphically it did not shine as it is reallyThis game does not deserve bad reviews just because in E3 they showed a video gameplay where graphically it did not shine as it is really shining today. This game with a good PC looks spectacular, it is very fluid and its gameplay is perfect. It has a difficulty that is already quite extreme in normal mode, we do not want to imagine how it will be in higher difficulties. You have game for a long time, it takes a lot of farming to get a character with a lot of level and keep the camp in good condition. The IA ​​works very well too. The game is addictive but I recognize that it is not for everyone. You have to have a lot of patience, and it is advisable to play with friends. It deserves an opportunity because as I said before, it can not be that they want to sink a game just for some videos seen long ago.… Full Review »
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