How was the article?

1536150cookie-checkOverkill’s The Walking Dead PS4, Xbox One Release Indefinitely Delayed
Industry News
2019/01

Overkill’s The Walking Dead PS4, Xbox One Release Indefinitely Delayed

Starbreeze Studios announced that Overkill’s The Walking Dead for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 has been indefinitely delayed.

The news comes courtesy of a very succinct press release from Starbreeze, which simply states…

“ Starbreeze AB is currently evaluating and reviewing the performance of the game OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead on consoles.

 

“Starbreeze has decided to postpone the release date from its original February 2019 date, further information regarding the future release will be announced at a later date.”

This comes after Starbreeze had to restructure, which included firing the CEO after Overkill’s The Walking Dead performed quite horribly in the sales department when it released last fall on PC. But that wasn’t the worst of the company’s troubles. The former CEO teamed up with police and the corporate offices were raided on suspicions of corruption.

The game itself was pretty mundane. It was a recycled take on the Left 4 Dead formula with practically nothing new added to it.

It also didn’t help that the focus of the characters were on minorities and women, which obviously wasn’t going to appeal to the majority of hardcore gaming base who would have otherwise purchased the game.

Attempting to sell a first-person shooter on the concept of strong, independent women who don’t need a man to female gamers, when they only make up 10% of the average purchasing demographic for hardcore FPS titles, is basically financial suicide.

Starbreeze basically committed financial suicide.

The company is now reevaluating the game on PS4 and Xbox One, and in result the release that was originally scheduled for the first half of 2019 has been postponed indefinitely until further notice.

Given the state of the company it’s tough to tell if they’re going to overhaul the game to actually make it worth playing or if they’re just going to cut their losses and stuff it on the back burner.

At their current direction, it’s tough to see them staying around in the business for much longer unless they clean house and start making games for actual gamers instead of trying to cater to phantom audiences.

Funnily enough, the Steam community doesn’t even think the game will last until February 6th.

Other Industry News