The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival review

It’d be easy to argue that The Walking Dead franchise has been shambling along, much like its titular walkers, for years now. The once iconic series is now far removed from the highs of the early seasons and the long-ended comic book series, and is surviving solely via spin-off shows. Despite being a mainstay of pop culture for nearly two decades, and featuring a setting ripe for the action and survival genres, a surprising lack of video games have been released based on the franchise. Aside from Telltale’s phenomenal releases and the VR Saints & Sinners series, most that were released were of dubious quality (I’m looking at you The Walking Dead: Destinies). The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival hopes to change that, allowing players to take the reins of characters such as Rick Grimes, Daryl Dixon, Negan, and Michonne as they fight their way through what is arguably one of the most exciting moments in the comics, the All Out War arc. But does it succeed?

If you’ve played any side scrolling beat ‘em up in the last forty years, then you understand the gist of the gameplay. Move right, beat up enemies, defeat bosses, collect items, repeat. The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival doesn’t stray far from this pattern. Beat ‘em ups are made or broken by their combat, and unfortunately the gameplay in Streets of Survival doesn’t quite have enough uniqueness to allow it to stand out. The combat here is predominantly melee and gun based, though Streets of Survival does do a decent job of ensuring each character feels somewhat unique to handle, mostly thanks to being paired with their iconic weapons from the show and comic. 

Daryl wields his dual knives and crossbow, Rick his iconic Colt Python Magnum and hatchet, Michonne her sword, and Negan his trusty bat of death, Lucille. Despite beginning with their unique weapons, each character is capable of picking up alternative weapons as well. Guns, ranging from small caliber to shotguns, are littered throughout, along with destructible melee items which are good for a few swings and help with crowd control when in a pinch. Michonne is the only character incapable of picking up additional melee weapons, choosing instead to hang on to her sword. To her credit, the sword is the best weapon in the game and indestructible.

Each character has a basic light attack, a strong attack with a short cooldown, and a melee attack provided you have an additional melee weapon on you. Two guns can be held at a time, and can be swapped at will. By default, the gun will aim at the nearest enemy, though you can toggle between other enemies if necessary. Aiming isn’t as simple as pulling the trigger though, as you do need to time your shots with a continuously expanding and shrinking reticule, hitting right at the point when the reticule is smallest, to cause the most damage. This is imperative as ammo is relatively scarce, and being surrounded by gun toting enemies while only holding a melee weapon is almost certainly a death sentence. Dodging is mainly handled by rolling, which also has a frustratingly long cooldown, at least until you can upgrade your character to have faster cooldowns.

Speaking of upgrading, additional special attacks and skill enhancements can be unlocked via a menu in between levels, which costs knowledge. Knowledge is obtained by searching levels for all items, defeating enemies, and completing level goals. Any knowledge gained can be used to upgrade any character, but be careful to not dump everything into one character on a first playthrough, as the game does force you to play as different characters throughout the story. That said, feel free to go wild on New Game+ as you are able to play as any character at any time. 

Available upgrades include the ability to hold additional health packs and healing enhancements, faster cooldowns on rolls, better firearm range, swifter melee attacks, more damage output from both melee weapons and firearms, additional loot, and more. There is no way to fully upgrade any character during a single run, so anybody hoping to become the ultimate walker fighter will need to plan on playing through the campaign a few times.

While not the most replayable game, there are a few things that might entice people to complete a few runs. Three difficulties are available in the base game, with a fourth difficulty, HELL ON EARTH, exclusive to the deluxe edition. Each level has multiple specific story items to find, along with slightly different dialogue depending on which character you choose to play as. For those who simply enjoy slaughtering walkers with no restrictions, the deluxe edition features an endless horde mod, simply called The Walker Pit. 

If we are being honest about the deluxe edition, it is not worth purchasing. The base game is $19.99, while the deluxe edition sells for half that at $9.99 and only includes two weapon skins (Bloody Lucielle and Tactical Magnum), a character skin (Civic Republic Military Rick), the HELL ON EARTH difficulty setting, the ability to listen to the soundtrack digitally, and The Walker Pit. There is really no reason all these things should not have been included in the base game. The skins mean little, don’t change gameplay in any way, and due to the retro pixelated graphics, really don’t stand out much. While cool, The Walker Pit isn’t substantial enough on its own to warrant paying for.

Streets of Survival is based on the All Out War arc of the comics and show, but takes liberties to tell its own story. Of note, no other main characters are included in the game, not even in passing, despite fighting your way through Hilltop, Alexandria, the Sanctuary, the junkyard, and more. The only named characters you’ll encounter are Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Negan, Simon, and Jadis. Even if characters such as Maggie, Gabriel, and Rosita weren’t playable, it would have been cool to see them fighting alongside you or in the background, helping the world feel more chaotic rather than so separated.

While the combat is decent, there’s just not enough variety here to help Streets of Survival stand out from better beat ‘em ups. You are either fighting walkers or Saviors, with a boss thrown in occasionally for good measure.  The walkers are interesting enemies, as they attack both you and the Saviors, allowing you to sometimes use them as a trap, but scenarios in which this is possible are rare. Streets of Survival could have benefited greatly from allowing players to approach encounters in a variety of ways, instead of funneling you through a linear path.

Fighting is clunky, with controls not being nearly as responsive as they should be. Leveling up your damage and swiftness helps, but shouldn’t be a requirement to make fighting manageable. Boss fights can be confusing, with the clunky controls becoming more of a nuisance than the boss themselves as you attempt to fight off both the boss and, normally, hordes of Saviors or walkers. Item drops are plentiful, but despite the game requiring backtracking, if you leave an area and return, then any items not picked up will be gone. This is frustrating when you may have had to leave behind a health pack, but upon returning need one, and now it is no longer available. Also, and this may be a pre-release issue, but enemy health, especially with bosses, doesn’t always display correctly. 

Perhaps most baffling of all is the lack of co-op. There is no couch co-op, online co-op, or even leaderboards. In a game genre tailor-made for teamwork, this is a truly confounding design decision. The game already features multiple characters, based on a show where teamwork is imperative for survival; why are we unable to utilize more than one at once?