Back From The Dead

Jess Kinghorn visits Starbreeze Studios in Stockholm, Sweden to learn more about Overkill's take on The Walking Dead.

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The other three players did try to tell you. “Alone or alive, ” they kept saying. But you didn’t listen. A s soon as the driver dropped you off, you broke away from the pack to a mass your own stock of what supplies are left in this dying world.

Your teammates called after you but you were undeterred as you tramped away. Breaking locks and heaving open doors as you sprinted through the ruins, it wasn’t long before you drew the attention of unwanted company.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been other survivors; at least there would be the chance you could reason with them. But in this four-player co-op game you share the planet with something that cannot be reasoned with, something that cannot speak beyond an endless low moan. Something that is endlessly hungry. “Alone or alive,” they kept saying, and you should’ve listened.

It might seem strange to base a shooter, a genre that gets plenty of mileage out of the power fantasy, in The Walking Dead’s universe. But Overkill manages some fancy footwork on this front. For one thing, supplies are scarce as you’d expect from a survival game. This is the impetus of many of your missions: returning to the desolate world outside to scrounge for what scraps you can bring back to base camp. Sometimes it isn’t as simple as just rifling through drawers for what you need.