Fans of the Walking Dead series now have a chance to create a safe haven in the world of the walkers and test their zombie survival skills in a RTS game for their mobile app device.
Gameplay
Players are responsible for creating essential buildings within the walls of their struggling town. As the player collects survivors, they can be put to work in the township cleaning and scavenging for resources. Some survivors have special skills that can be applied to specific buildings in your town, like the butcher in the meat market.
The Radio station is a critical building in your town because that’s how you can contact new survivors to bring into the safety of your walls. Using the radio also gives the player beneficial consumable items.
As the player town grows they are able to send out scouts to look for walkers, resources, and new buildings to expand their reach. The player will be able to train fighters to accompany the heroes on their fights which increases their chance for success. After successfully completing a mission the player has to make sure that any injured troops are healed in the hospital.
What is unique to The Walking Dead: Survivors?
One of the unique aspects of Survivors is the voice acting. It’s an added production value that lends itself well to the other unique aspect of the game, the choose your own adventure style missions. These missions force the player to make a decision based on the situation. Can you trust a 12-year-old girl who was forced to murder innocent travelers? Do you give a gun to a bitten survivor to let him make one last stand or do you put him out of his misery? Every choice has its own risks and rewards.
There are plenty of daily rewards and quests to help the player expand and build. The player can also collect resources by assigning towns people to collect from the trees, rubbish, and bushes in town.
There is a survival game mode that increases in difficulty and rewards as the player progresses. In this game mode the player must defend their town from attacking walkers. This is where the placement of guard towers is critical to survival. The player can post heroes in towers as long as the towers are still standing. The character will automatically attack in the style they specialize in, like sniper or melee. Some heroes have special area of effect skills like nail bombs, Molotov cocktails, or buffs. The fight goes on as long as the town hall stands. If you’re not successful you’ll need to consider moving some buildings around to give your characters the best chance at survival, or you might need to level up more to put up a better fight.
Joining a clan, players are given access to a clan tab that has separate goals for players to reach. Players can also donate to a clan skill tree that gives the entire clan resource and attack bonuses. There are a lot of free quest items and rewards so be sure to check the red dots that appear on different icons to collect your rewards!
What are the Microtransactions like in The Walking Dead: Survivors?
The micro transactions in this game range from $.99 to hundreds of dollars for different types of packages. There’s a traveling construction hire for $19.99 a month that gives the player added resources and build times as well as rubies. Rubies are the main currency of the game. I can’t say there was much of a need to buy the packages available as I’ve been able to earn the things I need by playing the game and completing quests, however, the temptation is great. The offers for new players can get as good as 3000% in some cases. So, if you’ve got the extra scratch and like the Walking Dead genre, spending a few bucks on these newbie offers isn’t a bad idea.
The aspect of “The Walking Dead: Survivors” that I didn’t like was the lack of the game that the advertisements had shown. It’s simply not there. The ads show Glenn actively hunting a deer and collecting its resources before turning around to fight off a zombie. He then jumps onto a motorcycle and heads into a town being overrun with walkers until heroes rush from the gates to take on the hoards of the undead. It’s an action packed game trailer that any fans of the series would be a fool not to try out. Well, be prepared to be disappointed because it is not this game. As far as I could tell that game doesn’t exist and this was a clear bait and switch. Usually ads have a disclaimer that says “not actual gameplay” however this one does not, which is totally misleading. I understand the need to try to stand out from the several RTS games that are on the market but lying outright to the fans is wrong. After taking look at the gams social media posts, this is something that others have pointed out as well.
Aside from the aforementioned issue this is a well-built RTS game based in the walking dead world. If you’re a fan of the series, comics, or of zombies you’ll be relatively satisfied with this one as long as you’re not expecting what was advertised.
For more on the Walking Dead, see our review of Walking Dead: Our World.
