The Walking Dead Onslaught Critic Reviews

With a well-written story, fantastic world building, and great, bloody combat, The Walking Dead Onslaught is a fantastic companion piece to the beloved AMC show and a great VR game in its own right. Supply runs provide a perfect mix of speedy action and tense combat, while the narrative portions feel carefully and artfully constructed. While the VR-level budget peaks through on occasion, this is an amazingly well-made and entertaining game.

The Walking Dead Onslaught is an awesome VR experience that centers around these characters that mean so much to fans of the show. The developer did a great job adapting the narrative of the show with an original story that feels like it could be its own episode. Killing Walkers has never been more fun, and I would happily go on another supply run again, even if it means encountering some random glitches.

While it’s nice to have a game based on the television version of The Walking Dead that’s enjoyable, this aspect falls short in The Walking Dead Onslaught. While some of the voice acting and the face models are good, the rest feels tacked on. Being able to identify targets and pick your points using guns offer a fantastic feeling, but the motion detection on the PSVR has a lot of issues. These issues may be a bigger deal if this was a full-priced game, but it’s only $30 and completely worth it for that price. I feel this would be a better experience on other platforms, but the game is playable and still enjoyable on PSVR. While I prefer a horror title that creates an atmosphere, the frantic tone of Onslaught does a good job in creating something different.

I initially loved the survival and building aspects of The Walking Dead Onslaught. Unfortunately it wore thin quite quick. I would have liked more depth and more variety but what we have is fun, immersive, zombie bashing good time. I just recommend playing in short bursts otherwise it will get repetitive very quickly.

There are several issues though and its biggest one regards movement, which offers three options: teleportation, swinging the PlayStation Move controller, or a smooth option reliant on button pressing. None of them click perfectly and adding to this, character models look a bit rough. If you can get past these flaws, Onslaught is ultimately enjoyable, bringing good combat and rebuilding Alexandria is quite fun. If you’re a fan of the TV series, this is worth a look.

I think The Walking Dead Onslaught might come off more positively if we hadn’t just experienced the greatness of Saints and Sinners just a few months ago. That game felt much more involved and immersive, with a great story that left an impact. By comparison, The Walking Dead Onslaught feels thin, and lacking in that atmosphere of desperation we’d expect from spending some time in the zombie apocalypse. If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead franchise and hunger for more zombie killing, the missions, gameplay and story in The Walking Dead Onslaught are not bad. But if you’re looking for something deeper to sink your teeth into, stick with Saints and Sinners.

While the ties to the AMC series are fun and interesting, Saints & Sinners is simply a better game.

On its own, The Walking Dead: Onslaught isn't a bad title. The gameplay is decent enough if you wanted something with a little more substance than the first crop of PSVR titles, and the length is more in line with a traditional modern title versus a VR-specific offering. The problem is that the bugs with hit detection and checkpoint triggering are enough to sap away any of the fun that the game could have provided. The other problem is that we aren't that far removed from The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, a much more satisfying experience that feels like what all VR games should aspire to. This probably would have gotten a higher recommendation if the release dates were reversed, but as it stands now, this is more for the TV show fan who wants a fun diversion, as long as they're willing to accept some big issues; this isn't suited for someone who's looking for the next big VR milestone title.

Ultimately, The Walking Dead: Onslaught feels like a VR version of The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, 2013’s mediocre first person shooter, also a Daryl-centric experience. There’s fun to be had if you experience it in small bites, but it’s so grind-heavy, repetitive and limited in scope that even if you’re a die-hard fan of the show, it’s barely worth sinking your teeth into.

Given the quality of other zombie games such as Saints and Sinners and Arizona Sunshine it’s really difficult to recommend Onslaught to anyone other than hardcore The Walking Dead fans. The best parts of The Walking Dead almost always revolve around the human interactions, but the game is a grind, the story is utterly disposable and it no longer feels relevant to a TV show that is now a couple seasons ahead.

The Walking Dead Onslaught is definitely not as good as Saints & Sinners. This VR experience, taking place in the TV show's universe feels outdated, characters share the same moves, story is not that interesting, the whole game is too easy and repetitive. Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Carol cannot save it, sadly.

The Walking Dead Onslaught isn't necessarily a terrible game - it just doesn't offer anything exciting to either VR or The Walking Dead. It feels like a very safe and risk-free game that was built to cash in on the subject material's popularity. Additionally, the fact that it is coming hot on the heels of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which is vastly superior, draws far too much attention to how uninspired The Walking Dead: Onslaught feels as a whole.