After a long line of games that focus on the AMC series the Walking Dead, Next Games has finally released their augmented reality version, The Walking Dead: Our World. Since the release of the super popular Pokemon Go! game, it was only a matter of time before other developers created their own twist on the game. Even with this new niche of augmented reality, this mobile game is exactly what horror fans crave.
For anyone that has followed The Walking Dead, the concept is straightforward; eliminate the zombies that have taken over your neighborhood. Survivors will play an integral role in this mobile version because they help provide extra content to the players. Along with getting out and walking to the enemies, a lot of the most revered characters are in the game too.
With the AR feature, zombies become very much in your world. Once the AR feature is enabled, zombies and your choice of assisting character fight together to defeat the enemies wherever you are standing. For the Android at least, the AR feature needed to be downloaded as an extra app in order to enjoy the fight. Luckily however, the extra addition became worth the few extra minutes when the option became available to assist other players in their feud and see what they are seeing.
Even though zombies can be scary and hard to look at sometimes, these zombies are very well portrayed. There is an overall visual of a decaying corpse without all of the extra blood and gore. So for the more squeamish audiences, this game can be handled with little scare factor. The only time that fights become tense is when the zombies start to walk toward you during a fight. Sometimes it feels as if they are getting just a bit too close, so kill them quickly, with a headshot of course.
As you fight your way through the map (of your current location) every win gives you a loot bag. These loot bags give random rewards such as tokens, characters and the best of all; weapons. Weapons such as the Osprey Pistol are common but the longer you play the more access you get. Also, with most apps too in the mobile world, in-app purchases can be made too but hopefully becoming a team with others can help save this expense. The better you shoot, the more you get so aim carefully!
Teams can be a big deal since challenges become harder and can be group specific. As a team you can share game insights and work together to gain larger rewards. For example, some group members locally shared the insight that flares are actually cheap and quite necessary as well. As they learn more through experience so does everyone else which is a win-win.
Overall, the game is a lot like Pokemon Go released by Niantic but for horror fans. If cute little animals don’t get you out in to the world then maybe this will. The thrill of having nasty creepy zombies in your face while trying to save survivors is worth the journey at least.
8/10
Available now on mobile devices
