Overkill’s The Walking Dead game made an appearance at E3 2015. The demo available on Star VR headset was a small teaser of what’s to come on current-gen consoles and PC.
Almir Listo, global brand director for Starbreeze Studios and producer of Overkill’s The Walking Dead game, spoke to iDigital Times about the upcoming title. Listo confirmed Starbreeze Studios is working directly with The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and his team to explore new aspects of his zombie-filled universe.
“[The game is] based on the comic book universe created by Robert Kirkman and Skybound. We have a very strong relationship with them,” Listo said. “It’s a direct partnership- there is no publisher involved that’s deciding everything. We decide what we want to do together with Robert and his team. It’s going to be new characters and storylines based on the same universe as the comic books.”
Overkill’s The Walking Dead will take place in Washington D.C. The title will be a first-person shooter and cooperative experience with elements of survival, horror, stealth and action. Listo said their developers wanted to focus on the game’s replay abilities and the different weapons available for players.
“Much like everything we experienced and learned from PayDay 2, we’re going to bring with us in Overkill’s The Walking Dead, making sure we have the replay ability, the vast amount of weapons you can use, the intense action and the amazing feeling of stealth when you manage to sneak by someone without noticing. It’s going to be a great game,” Listo said.
What you won’t see in Overkill’s The Walking Dead is many popular characters from the AMC TV series. Listo’s team wanted to steer clear of the characters Kirkman has developed in the show. Listo explained the team doesn’t have any issues with possibly including characters like Rick or Michonne, but wanted to use the opportunity they had to tell a new story The Walking Dead fans have yet to experience.
“You might see some,” Listo said referring to popular The Walking Dead characters. “We’ve intentionally avoided talking about you, for example, playing as Michonne because that’s a character Robert created. We have all the respect for his characters, but we want to create new characters within his universe...There’s so much more to explore in his universe. There’s so much more we can introduce that fans of [The Walking Dead] would probably love.”
Overkill’s The Walking Dead, which is currently in-development, will be released to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
We had the opportunity to test out the Star VR prototype with Overkill’s The Walking Dead demo. Check out our thoughts about the VR headset and the game here.
