Staff – October 23, 2018 at 10:05 AM
Immerse yourself in The Walking Dead universe, where you’ll have to fight by any means necessary in order to survive the constant threat of the living and the dead. For a limited time, you have been given access into OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead’s exclusive beta. This beta is only available till October 28th, 2018 so be sure to try it out while you can!
How to Access the Beta:
- Enter Your Key found in the email on the GMG portal
- Follow the instructions found on the GMG portal
If you have difficulties redeeming your key, please reach out to the moderators on the Closed PC Beta subforum on Steam.
Before you jump into this fight for survival, you can find out what you’re in for: at its heart, The Walking Dead isn’t really about a zombie-ridden apocalypse, but rather about the human relationships that bind its survivors together. Familial loyalty, unlikely friendships, and cold-blooded rivalries form the backbone of the comic series’ drama. OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead takes this principle and applies it to a four-player, co-op zombie shooter context; each of the game’s four playable characters were designed from the ground up in collaboration with The Walking Dead’s creator, Robert Kirkman, to have a compelling backstory and personality to match their gameplay style.
Set in Washington, D.C., OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead kicks off with the playable characters embroiled in a conflict between their own camp and a camp controlled by a faction known as “The Family.” “What you're gonna experience through the game is how this conflict evolves, how the violence escalates, and how it's resolved at the end of each season,” Executive Producer Saul Gascon explained.
As players progress through each level, they’ll come across evidence of how the emergence of the walkers ravaged a once peaceful city. Players might stumble across the scene of a sudden car crash, or a house that hasn’t yet been raided. These areas will be full of set pieces and environmental details that form a story. “At any corner, we try to always explain and convey...what happened there,” Gascon said.
In addition, the four playable characters — Aidan, Grant, Heather, and Maya — each have their own personal histories, all of which will come to light as the player navigates the game’s world. “While you explore the environments you find… things that they remember from their previous life,” Gascon said. “This is a way that you can [dig] deeper into their psyche and who they are.”
OVERKILL worked closely with Kirkman to craft a compelling backstory for each character that fit their player class. For instance, OVERKILL knew they wanted one character to serve as the team’s “tank,” a character who uses a melee weapon and is capable of taking a lot of damage.
They brought the archetype to Kirkman, who worked together with them on the character name (Aidan) and his backstory: Before the walkers arrived, Aidan was an architect working in D.C. This accounts for why Aidan is so adept at building and maintaining structures at the base camp. “I was very positively surprised… by how Robert is sensible to gameplay,” Gascon said. “Through this process, I discovered that he's a nerd of games.”
Maya, who fulfills the medic role in the game, was designed to be physically “fragile” but with a mental constitution strong enough to withstand serious trauma. “This is how doctors fit perfectly that role; a doctor has seen so many people die in their hands while they're trying to save them, Gascon said. “That type of personality creates a bit of a shield around themselves to be able to cope with death.”
Though OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is heavy on firing guns and building booby traps, it stays true to the comic series’ emotional storytelling. While players are out scavenging for resources, they’ll also find themselves on the lookout for thoughtful details to clue them into their characters’ lives.
OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead will come out for PC on November 6, 2018.
