Did you expect the best VR game in the first month of the new decade? I wasn’t, but The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is a near perfect experience. Developed by Skydance Interactive and Skybound Entertainment, this horror experience drops you right in the the world of TWD. Not advised for anyone who panic attacks, this game throws you right in the middle of the zombie hoard like never before. Of course, zombies are not the only threat here.
Say goodbye to Georgia and hello to the Big Easy. You are the nameless Tourist, sent to help an old scavenger retrieve a lifetime of goods. This does not happen and you are forced into survival mode. New Orleans has seen better days, and the remaining humans have split into different factions. You have to pick a side and try to find out how things went so wrong. Of course, this would be much easier if the city was not overrun with the not so dead.
Saints and Sinner pulls you into the world from the very beginning. The city looks destroyed, with water logged streets and the feeling that the zombies are not the only thing decaying. Sometimes the best option is to keep your head down and let whatever threat play itself out. Other times, you are forced to fight with whatever you happen to have on you. The combat is so satisfying you might want to seek out danger. The feeling of swinging an ax or a familiar bat with nails in it feels good. There are guns as well, but they have their problem. You have to manually reload. You might be cool when you are alone, but try and reload as an wave is coming. Front load, pump and shoot. You might catch your hands trembling like I did.
The world of TWD has always been more about the people then the zombies. On the surface, it might seem like a endless fetch quest. The game gives you branching dialogue options and sometimes this effects how well your mission will turn out. This makes it feel more real and that choices do matter. If there is one problem with the game, it is the human enemies. When you start to question if the zombies might be smarter then the human AI, that is not a good thing. Luckily, the game nails everything else that this becomes an annoyance, not a game breaker.
The city is big and begging to be explored. Not quite open world, Saints and Sinner does a fantastic job of making the areas you search seem huge. The graphics are good,showing what a big city would look like after everything has gone to hell. Time moves forward and you might find yourself caught after dark. This makes a the journey back much harder. One of the most interesting things is your stamina and health bar. Certain actions effect them and you have to find the right balance of supplies that can get you through a day.
Saints and Sinners is a great VR game, but it is also one of the best TWD games. The human AI is the only thing that does not quite work. The tension is always there, from opening a door to mowing down a non stop army of zombies. In VR, you can not simply look around to break the spell. With long and exciting gameplay, you might find yourself hesitant to leave.
9/10
Available on PC (VR Only)
