Skydance Interactive and Skybound Entertainment have launched The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners as the latest high-profile virtual reality survival horror game.
Skydance Interactive, a division of Skydance Media, and Skybound Entertainment, the company run by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, created the game for the Oculus Rift, Rift S, Quest, and HTC Vive.
The game features an original storyline, freedom of choice, and visceral and bloody combat. Just like in the TV show and other games, you have to make awful choices, such as killing other humans to get food or to protect your crew.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners offers a deep-rooted VR gaming experience in which players must fight to survive the flooded ruins of New Orleans, surrounded by unending herds of walkers and torn apart by warfare between the remaining survivors. Players will explore this expansive world as they fight their way through humans and walkers, scavenge weapons and supplies, make brutal moral choices and uncover a mystery that will determine the future for everyone left alive in the region.
Adam Grantham, creative director at Skydance Interactive, said in a statement that VR gives players an immersive experience that they can’t otherwise get in console or mobile games.
“We wanted to give players an original story that truly belonged within The Walking Dead universe, from the environments, the narrative, and the combat, to make them feel as if they were truly living in this gruesome world,” he said.
I’ve tried the game out, and the developers have focused on physicality and motion when it comes to the players’ actions. That is supposed to create a deeper interaction between the player and the environment.
You have to scale buildings to ambush enemies from above, hold down a walker’s head to rip a knife out of its skull, and attack from a distance with throwing weapons, bows, and long-range firearms. Players can choose from an arsenal of weapons or craft their own to fit their play style and survive their way. Physics-based combat turns every swing of an axe or jab of a knife into not just one of clever planning, but of physical effort to overcome enemies.
The game is slated to arrive on PlayStation VR in spring 2020, followed by Oculus Quest standalone later in the year.
Players can purchase the Standard Edition for $40 and the Tourist Edition for $50. The Tower Edition is available for $150.