OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead – A Beta Experience

This is my (almost late) thoughts on the beta for OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead. I’ve waiting so long for this game to come out and after all this time I’m finally going to get to talk about it! OH GOD FINALLY IT’S COMING OUT!!! Alright now though, let’s get serious with this.

OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is a first-person cooper shooter taking place in an original storyline in Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead universe in the area around Washington DC. With very little ammunition and hordes of undead and enemy humans, the keys to survival are silence, strategy, and teamwork. As you explore the ruins of America’s capital you can find supplies, fellow survivors, weapons, and most often, trouble.

Before Playing the Beta:

A lot has happened this year that has plummeted the number of fans of The Walking Dead: Scott Gimple killed off Carl Grimes and gave us the worst season ever for the show (both in ratings and quality); Fear the Walking Dead’s fourth season started off strong, but became the same old storyline as any other boring TWD episode; Telltale Games shut down, ending chances for a conclusion to their Walking Dead series (though all the people working on it have been hired by Robert Kirkman, the creator of the series, so that’s kind of nice); and Andrew Lincoln, the man behind Rick Grimes, has announced that season 9 will be his last on the show. All in all, it’s been depressing for the TWD fanbase.

All of this, and four years of waiting with few glimpses into the game, have made me terribly nervous and anxious on the state of OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead. When it was finally available to pre-order I pre-ordered the deluxe edition. There are those who would say, “Dude, you should never pre-order, you don’t know if the game will be good or bad.” I knew that when I did my purchase. I knew there was a chance the game could have problems in testing and that it might not be perfect, but I didn’t care because I wanted to do whatever it took to make sure this game would succeed. So many notes were taken on this game so I can tell OVERKILL Software so they could improve the game in order for it to succeed.

Now how well did the beta go? Well I’ve got some positives and negatives about it and I’m going share them with you right here and now.

Positive: Just Like the Comics

The biggest concern I had while waiting for the any gameplay footage was if the game would feel like The Walking Dead. Media, especially games, have become saturated to the point of pest-ridden with zombies, from Left 4 Dead to Call of Duty to Killing Floor to Red Dead Redemption (I wonder if the sequel will get a zombie mode too). Zombies are one of the biggest fads in media and The Walking Dead has used zombies and their world to create a fascinating, but believable, environment with humans losing some of their control and becoming renegades and bandits. In The Walking Dead it’s not focused on the immediate uprising of the dead, but about the struggle of rebuilding a war torn world while the dead physically or psychologically tear us apart.

I am overjoyed to tell you all that Overkill’s The Walking Dead does capture a ton of the feeling that the original source material has. Buildings are abandoned and trashed, guns and ammo are scarce, walkers scatter or infest the streets around you, and teamwork is needed to survive this world and the attacking human group, The Family. This wasn’t just any other zombie franchise, this was The Walking Dead to me. I have a small qualm with why the zombies are called walkers when Morgan was the one with the original name and only through him and Rick do people know of this term. However in the end I find the whole game very fitting in The Walking Dead universe.

One of the best things of this feel is the reliance on silence. Gunfire, car alarms, explosions, and other loud noises increase a noise level in missions outside of your base. There are three levels of noises, with higher levels increasing the aggressiveness and number of walkers on the map, eventually leading to a horde always hunting you and your teammates down. By that point you can go as loud as you want, but by that point there are also so many walkers about you that you and your team will be overrun in minutes. I’m not joking or exaggerating, you will most likely die and that gets right to the point on how characters live and die in The Walking Dead: By being careful and aware of your environment. Especially with my first big complaint of the beta.

Negative: The Network Laaaaaaaaaaaaag

Playing the first phase of the beta, I was frustrated by the slow framerate and crashes of the game. First day of playing it I got three crashes before I even got into a mission. When I did get into my first mission the lag was intense and I ended my first day irritated out of my mind. Later that beta phase and every beta after that though has had much better performance for my computer. Matches, depending on the number of players, can range from playable to smooth-as-silk animation.

At first I believed these times of performance problems to be related to my computer, which could be possible since while my computer and Wi-Fi allow me to play intense games it’s not fully up to date with some of the newest releases, such as Far Cry 5. Playing this game on my own though or without a full, four-member part I had much smoother animation and combat. That, along with a confirmation from my spy at OVERKILL Software, showed me the game uses peer-to-peer networking to host and play matches. This could be changed or dramatically improved upon official release (my spy has told me that OVERKILL is working really hard to try lessening network issues), but having these problems now have caused some issues and has made potential buyers concerned and turned off from buying the full game.

Even with this network problem the game is totally playable. There were plenty of times that were quiet and cleared of walkers while planning the next move. With this framerate problem being a network issue and not a computer issue you are capable of playing missions on your own. However there is a catch to this.

Positive: Intense (But Fitting) Difficulties

Actually this also kind of a negative as well, so it’s a mix of both good and bad. I’ll stick more with the good though because this strengthens the teamwork needed for a TWD game. There were a ton of walkers, often more than I thought fitting for the difficulties I played, but it was kept around a similar amount every time so every experience felt consistent with the difficulty. The danger from gunfights with humans was high to due deadly damage and the loud noise bringing in more walkers. My spy told me that the developers they worked with wanted to keep the game difficult for more hardcore players. I’m in the mixed bag about this because while I like a difficult experience, I find it a bit unappealing to be incapacitated and die multiple times on a normal difficulty. Saying this though I was only armed with common, weak weapons, so if I had higher quality gear I would most likely be better off and be able to kill enemies more easily.

As mentioned previously, the noise levels in the missions can dramatically affect the difficulty, adding on more or less walkers depending on how much noise is made. This stacks with the difficulty already set, multiplying the danger players can get into if not prepared. Compare this now to the previous OVERKILL game, Payday 2, where you either have to go full loud or full quiet to complete a heist. If a stealth mission breaks silence then your team can get swamped by highly dangerous enemies and even get a limited time to complete for flee the crime scene, which can often result in a restart or a ragequit. In OTWD though stealth and loud is balanced out, giving players the options to go both routes with whatever gear they have while promoting a quiet playstyle because of the noise and walkers.

With such great and challenging difficulties though there is a problem.

Negative: No Tutorial

The first mission I did for this game I went in completely blind. I tried looking for a tutorial and checking my control settings before dropping into my first mission, but neither existed and I was worried about how I’d do my first time. As you can guess I did very poorly by getting myself incapacitated multiple times and not knowing how to complete the mission at all. It was a complete failure. This wasn’t just me though, I played with people who hardly had any direction or knowledge on how to best survive and complete the missions they were in. My last mission playing the beta in fact ended in failure due to half my team focusing more on killing walkers more than shutting the games to prevent any more getting in. They didn’t know what to do and so we all failed.

Without a proper tutorial and with many previous FPS zombie games having basically unlimited ammo and guns on hand, the idea of stealth and strong teamwork is not prioritized and leads most of the time to a failed mission. Not everyone who plays this game will be a fan of the TV series or the comics, so demonstrating and highlighting a quiet, calculated, joint effort playstyle is necessary in order for players to succeed in as many missions as possible. Later on I will give you a few examples of memorable moments of good and bad missions, but I will tell you there are both people who know how to survive a zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten and/or zombified on day 1.

Now this was just a beta, so most likely there will be a full tutorial explaining the main mechanics and mission types to new players. It doesn’t mean I’m forgiving though in not including one, but if there isn’t one in the full game there will be a lot of problems and negative criticism. When it’s there though there is one particular mechanic that has to be fully talked about.

Positive: Scavenging In The Wild

With some games like Payday 2 you start a mission/ match with what you got and that’s all you get. It’s a great way to prep beforehand and make a plan before jumping into the fight. We got that with OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead, but throughout the mission we also have ability to craft additional equipment such as deployables, bandages, and tools. But to do that you have to scavenge for materials. I have had so much fun scavenging about maps, discovering locked chests, survivors, and other loot about as I looked for materials.

Scavenging doesn’t just help me craft supplies, it helps everyone on my team in crafting more equipment for themselves, helping them survive more easily, which of course helps you. This mechanic is perfect for a TWD game, keeping players active and rewarded while completing objectives. There are so many uses for the tools and deployables in the missions that you have to be patient with what you got in case something more dangerous or rewarding is around the corner. When you have a team with all different tools on them the rewards get better and more numerous.

Since in many games my favorites parts are the exploring and discovering, the scavenging in Overkill’s The Walking Dead was one of my favorite parts of the beta. Every playthrough was different with what materials and obstacles were around, making me always look around for supplies. There was never a stockpile of certain materials at a certain spot, everything was different! I cannot wait to find more stuff when the full game comes out.

Being outside for so long though you eventually have to go inside which is…

Negative: Camp is Boring and Tedious

The base of operations, Camp Anderson, is a pretty neat management mechanic that makes you feel like you’re running a haven for survivors. Well, when I’m not actually at the camp. When I’m in the base it’s devoid of life and activity, leaving me with little interest in going there except to turn in certain objectives. And that’s it. There are upgrades you can get that improve the base and characters, along with unlocking new gear and skill trees, but again that can be done in the world menu.

In Payday 2, you have to occasionally defend your base of operations from the enemy after you complete a few missions. In OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead defense missions are always there, along with occasional surprise attacks from The Family, makes eventually have to fight to keep our base protected, whether from the Family or a horde of walkers. These missions consist of fighting off waves of enemies a few times and that’s that. For walkers you have to fix the gates to finish a wave and for the Family you have to keep them from stealing supplies, but in the end it’s still the same, dull formula. There has be more variety in defense and different locations to defend so this isn’t just the same thing over and over.

For example, why not have situations holding out for reinforcements or defend a moving caravan of supplies as they head back to Camp Anderson? What if a rouge sets fire to part of the building and you have to fight off enemies while putting out the fire? How about defending a bomb or a trap that’s being set up in an enemy base and then escaping so the base becomes useless to the enemy after the trap is set off? I’m getting more and more ideas as I type these all out, but in the end it’s got to be more than just defending home base.

Another problem I have with the camp is the use of camp resources. There are three in total (I can’t remember the exact names, but I’ll give a general name for them): Scrap, rations, and wood. I needed all of these to keep my camp supplied and happy because every three days there was an upkeep which took a large portion of my supplies in order to keep all my people happy and hard working. From my time in the beta there was always over-reliance on the scrap, taking 60 every upkeep compared to the 30 and 20 of the other two resources. Additionally scrap was needed to repair weapons, add attachments to said weapons, and purchase new attachments from the supplier at Camp Anderson. The rest was only ever used in missions that camp survivors could carry out, leaving me with an overabundance of rations and wood, yet poor on scrap. This imbalance needs to be fixed!

Defense missions offered little supplies and resources while expedition missions always rewarded me with lots of resources, making me much more interested in expeditions. So Camp Anderson and defense overall needs more to it for players to go and actually play these types of missions.

Positive: What a Beautiful Looking Ruin

Now graphics aren’t something I prioritize when I purchase a game, it’s more of an icing on the cake for me. Saying that though the graphics are highly detailed, matching higher end PC games at this time. The world was in ruins, the greenery wild and waving in the wind, and even puddles of water splashed as I walked through them. Previous years of screenshots made the game look really good, but without gameplay footage it wasn’t really much comfort to me. Now having played it I am definitely impressed with the graphics, especially on highest settings.

The lighting for the game though was spectacular. Textures and digital effects are only the base though, the lighting decides whether they look good or bad. Boom lights and ambient occlusion made the textures go from flat to popping out at me. To add a little something extra on top, the dust particles in the game blended very well with the environment. All of this really pulled me into the game and the world of The Walking Dead. I’ve got a little funny story on the lighting and graphics later on in this review, but I can clearly see a ton of work has been put into the look of the game. There are a few changes I bet I could think up for how it could look better, but overall I’m very satisfied with the appearance of OTWD.

Okay, onto my final negative for this critique sandwich.

Negative: Chat System Needs Work

With teamwork being so needed in this game, strong communication is key to victory. However there was no voice chat buttons available to me during the beta, though somehow on phase one people could talk, but there was no way to turn it off. That was removed in later phases and the control settings show no option or button to activate voice chat. That then leaves typing in a chatbox. However every time I pressed the TAB button, which is also the button to open the crafting menu, it changed who I send messages to in the chat box. This led to very frustrating times for me when I had to send an urgent message out to my team.

This is probably just a small bug that creeped under the radar that can be easily fixed up. Having worked with programming in Unreal Engine 4 I can see this bug being easy to fix. I hope it is as easy as I think it’ll be because while I do have a very good microphone and headset, I prefer to use my voice only with people I know and not randoms. I’m not the most social person out there heheheh

Now for the best news, one that’ll convince fans of The Walking Dead, Payday, or just people who are on the fence on buying this game to give OTWD a try.

Positive: Free DLC

For those worried about having to pay five to seven USD each for 20 DLCs, fear not! OVERKILL has stated that they intend to have the game and all DLCs free of microtransactions. Ever since the disastrous Black Market update of Payday 2, OVERKILL has become very cautious about microtransactions in game, to the point of them becoming very, very rare. It seems they’re keeping that lesson in mind with the DLC plans. There will be skins in game, but they seem to be only obtainable through in game chests and resource spending (from what I’ve heard).

But that’s only the small stuff. The real DLCs are new “seasons” that will be added every half year or so that add new missions, weapons, and even characters to the game. All free of charge. Now in a developer stream it was stated that the first one would arrive at the end of November and the next one would be June of 2019, but it still intrigues me what they’ll be doing with these new seasons. My personal hopes are that the seasons will introduce new story elements that result in new gameplay mechanics for missions.

Conclusion

OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is not a masterpiece of gaming, but if there are problems fixed upon or shortly after the official release, then this game is going to be a blast! It’ll be just the sort of game the zombie and Walking Dead fans will have been waiting for! Personally I’m psyched to get back to playing the game, the wait for the full release has been agonizing. Maybe it’s because the newest season of The Walking Dead is doing fantastically without Scott Gimple’s filthy, disgusting hands ruining TV, but I’m just so happy the franchise is getting something exciting and new to play. After season 8 and the fourth season of Fear The Walking Dead, I was getting kind of desperate for something good to come about. Well Telltale Games went bankrupt next, ending Telltale’s The Walking Dead’s final season, and my hope disappeared.

Even though it has its share of problems, this game has been great fun throughout the beta and has the potential to be a big hit. The graphics are great, the style matches the original source material, the combat is fun, and there’s open possibilities for what can happen next in the game. Payday 2’s story has officially ended with 2018’s Crimefest event, so now OTWD can be focused on in terms of story and development. I just have a bit longer and then I’ll see for myself how it goes.

And now for some incredible moments from my time playing the beta!

Memorable Moments in the Beta

• Upgrading my base so I had access to multiple tools was incredible. You start off with just lockpicks, but scattered through the level are many different types of locks, barriers, and traps that require different tools to open or disarm. When I unlocked the Chem Kit and disarmed my first bomb it felt amazing.

• One of my first expedition missions started off with a teammate pulling out an unsilenced pistol and shooting a large crowd of walkers that we could all easily avoid. I immediately shouted in chat what the hell he was doing and he said he was thinning the herd. In less than a minute we were all swarmed and I ragequitted because there was no hope in us winning. Guys, this isn’t Call of Duty, this is The Walking Dead. It’s not a series littered with zombie hordes getting gunned down. You have to play it smarter than that.

• My first time entering Camp Anderson was rather dismal due to, as I mentioned, the lack of characters and activities. I still toured the camp though to check out all the textures and was very impressed by it all. Until I found a spot of cracked brick wall that had a shiny gloss. I kind of lost my mind seeing that because I’ve done brick textures before for games and seeing some bricks, some old, cracked, broken clay bricks have a glossy shine to them broke me. I told my friends, I told my family, I told my girlfriend, and of course I told my spy about these shiny bricks! I’ve since cooled down from that moment and now it’s a memory that will always make me burst into laughter over how silly I was. If you want to see for yourself, here's a link to screenshot of the scene here.

• One time in an expedition mission I found a locked chest and was excited to get a new weapon or weapon attachment. However I needed a lockpick and only one person on my team of four had one. I typed out in chat that there was one and called it out, but the guy with the lockpicks did nothing. Another teammate joined me in calling it out and they still didn’t notice. It took, I swear to god, 15 minutes for them to notice our messages while they were killing zombies and open up the chest. I have no clue how they didn't say a thing when we were yelling so much for them to do something.

OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead fully releases on Tuesday, November 6th. After a full experience of the full game I hope to tell more on how the game plays out. In the meanwhile, The Walking Dead television series is having an unexpected and stunning 9th season. Seriously it blows my mind how good the show has gotten compared to the last few seasons. Five episodes so far and not one of them is dumb or disappointing. The Walking Dead is taking back its place in television!