Outside of the games, and seasons of them, that Telltale developed, The Walking Dead has infamously struggled when it’s come to video games. Odaclick Game Studio and Trailmark Games are attempting to change this with their beat ‘em-up set in Robert Kirkman’s zombie filled universe. They’re calling it The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival.
Set during the war with Negan and his Saviours, this story begins with Rick facing off against Negan on the porch of a home in Alexandria. After the two break apart, Rick heads underground and discovers that his son, Carl, has been bitten by a walker and is at the end of his short life. Thus begins a roughly three hour long, retro inspired brawler like we used to play on consoles like the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and, of course, at arcades.
Unlike most of its peers, The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is a single player experience, which offers three different playable characters to start with: Rick, Michonne and Daryl. The latter has his knife and crossbow, Michonne has her trusty katana and Rick seems to have some sort of a knife to go along with his revolver. Separately, they each offer something a little bit different, although it’s Michonne’s longer reaching and (seemingly) more damaging sword that feels most different and, in my opinion, best. Generally speaking, they all tend to play similarly, with basic melee attacks, heavy attacks and more powerful charged attacks, alongside ranged weapons. That said, I didn’t see the need to press Y for heavy attacks for most of the game, even though I was advised to use it to break a block that Negan was doing. It just wasn’t necessary, or that helpful, in the rest of the campaign.
Over the course of this campaign, you’ll visit different areas and fight your way through both the living and the undead. It’s also possible to get them to fight each other, during the few segments where one can unleash a group of zombies on human bad guys. Most of the time, though, will be spent fighting them all by yourself.
There are a number of varieties of both human and zombie foes, meaning their looks as opposed to how they fight. However, you will encounter the odd larger zombie, as well as a fat and puss filled boss at the end of the first stage. Human enemies come in different forms too: basic with melee, basic with guns, heavy and shielded and heavy with guns. The majority of the time, you’ll be fighting the first two, and will need to roll to avoid ranged fire, and try to deal with those jerks first. At least, that’s what I did. Gunfire is more damaging than anything, and if you go close to these enemies they cannot shoot. They’ll also only shoot if you are within their sight lines, which are not the most realistic.
As one progresses through each stage, they’ll come across lore based collectible items, like Carl’s letters to Michonne and Rick, family portraits and more. They’ll also find the odd hint, like half of a door code written on a scrap of paper. These are found pretty easily, by taking the time to look in every room, unlock the ones that are locked and by exploring anything with a circle over it. This tells you there’s something to interact with, and it also tells you which enemies are holding an item you need, like a key. Any other time an enemy can be interacted with, it’s got knowledge for you to take. Think of that as experience points, or upgrade points, as that’s all it is.
There will also be lots of melee weapons and guns to pick up along the way. Michonne won’t pick up any extra melee weapons because she has her own, and nor will Negan once you unlock him as the fourth and final playable character. The other two will, though, and it took me a while before I realized that I had to press the shoulder button to use them for more devastating attacks. They don’t last long though.
Each character can hold a couple of guns, with one being a pistol and the other being a heavy gun — something that Daryl’s crossbow is considered. These ranged weapons have limited ammo, but can be very helpful. Don’t worry about using them, or their ammo, up because they’re pretty plentiful. The gunplay is also basic and pretty easy to understand, requiring the left trigger to be used to bring up a gun and holding it for better damage (the coloured reticule that appears on the closest enemy will change colours to show this improvement). It’s not always perfect, but it gets the job done.
Enemies often have near perfect aim, and they don’t always have lanes. As such, it’s possible to get hit by bullets that you don’t know are coming. One way this game is different from its peers, though, is that it has cover in the form of boxes and barrels, some of which can be broken. You can walk around them, or slide over them, and sometimes have to do the latter because there is no other choice.
Unlike other beat ‘em-ups, The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival doesn’t have food items that appear every so often and heal the player. Instead, it uses a medkit system. These are pretty plentiful, and are very helpful; especially during bosses. Each character can hold three of them at one time, and must stop to slowly use them while the player holds the right directional button on the d-pad. If you’re interrupted while using one, which didn’t happen much in my case as there was a lot of downtime, then the medkit is considered gone, without all of its healing capabilities having been used.
The aforementioned knowledge can be used to upgrade each of the four playable characters every time you return to the menu after completing a stage. They all share the same experience pool, so be careful, and each one has his or her own skill tree. For instance, it’s possible to make it so that Rick starts with medkits, but you can’t do that with Michonne, whom I used most. Instead, her tree has critical damage upgrades. I generally felt stronger while using her anyway.
That said, it’s important to not just focus on one protagonist. Although I favoured Michonne, I wasn’t always able to use her because a number of the levels had specific characters in mind. All I could do was choose who was offered, and maybe change Rick’s skin to a tactical one if I wanted. There was the odd level where I could pick between Michonne or Daryl, but the latter was my least favourite so I never chose him unless I had to.
I think you can play through the entire game as Negan once he’s unlocked, but cannot say for sure. All I did was replay the first mission as him. That said, if you want to fully upgrade everyone, you are looking at quite a few play throughs.
All of the above combines to create a pretty fun, decently challenging (but not overly hard), beat ‘em up set in the AMC TV adaptation’s universe and starring some of its major players. The core gameplay won’t set the world on fire, but it’s pretty fun and enjoyable. I can’t see people returning to this one regularly, to replay it, but it’s a solid game that helps change its IP’s troubles in the video game space. I didn’t have high hopes for this one, especially after seeing screenshots, but was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed myself for the most part. Things did get repetitive, though, and it was annoying not being able to switch to the opposite side while fighting. Doing so required a second of standing still.
There were a few annoying and poorly designed bosses, so it’s good that the checkpoint system is generous. The game also has different difficulty options, which can be changed at any time. I played it on normal.
I do, however, wish that this had been a standalone story or something different in terms of narrative. While I know that the battle against Negan and his Saviours is one of the most popular and well known parts of the show, as well as one of the darkest and most violent, it was something I’d already experienced before. The story didn’t interest me as much as a result. It got really tedious when I was watching the show too, as it was repetitive and kind of boring. I preferred when each season had a different struggle, and actually liked seasons one and two most. I meant to finish the show, but stopped around some sort of hospital battle and didn’t pick it back up.
On top of this, while the game is called The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival, a lot of it takes place in sewers, warehouses, Hilltop, etc. There aren’t a ton of outdoor stages. However, the game’s stages are presented on a map, and you can choose which one to complete. A lot of the time, there’s stage 1A and 1B, 2A, 2B and 2C and so on. This allows different characters to be sent to different areas, like an electrical substation or something.
Before we move on, it’s also important to note that there’s a combat arena/survival mode called The Walker Pit, for those who are interested. I’d almost forgotten it existed when I wrote this review.
Although I previously said that I didn’t have high expectations for this game, especially after seeing screenshots, I must admit something: I owe the developers and the art team an apology. While it didn’t seem like this would be much of a looker, they actually pulled it off well while staying true to the post-apocalyptic series’ drab colour scheme and boring environments. The levels look good, with some nice detail. Meanwhile, the character models — enemies included — have really nice pixel art, and look quite nice.
The audio, meanwhile, is fine. It does the job. The music is pretty good, but honestly kind of forgettable, and most of the dialogue is delivered over text. You’ll get the occasional one liner, such as a quote from Michonne, but that’s about it. Otherwise, the game is mostly made up of combat and character sound effects, all of which sound fine.
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival won’t blow anyone away, but it’s a pretty good beat ‘em up and one that ended up being better than expected. It’s a fun romp for fans of the series, although it plays things kind of safe and is missing the cooperative multiplayer element that this genre has always been known for. That said, I didn’t mind that as much as some others will.
This review is based on the XBOX Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.