The Walking Dead Onslaught Reviews
The Walking Dead: Onslaught is just fine for a zombie-themed arcade shooter. It brings a few beloved Walking Dead characters and locations into VR, but it doesn't offer much more substance than that.
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.
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 a serviceable enough Walking Dead VR game if it piques your interest, but its hard for me to recommend. While the ties to the AMC series are fun and interesting, Saints & Sinners is simply a better game. I traditionally don't like comparisons in reviews, but the release dates, themes, and mechanics of these two are just too close to ignore. Fans of AMC's The Walking Dead will probably enjoy Onslaught as a bit of supplementary material featuring characters and locations from the show, but Survios' take on the world is just an okay VR game that doesn't strike any notable chords for either The Walking Dead or VR in general.
Saints and Sinners showed there was huge potential for this series in VR, which is why it's such a shame that The Walking Dead: Onslaught is a massive disappointment.
The Walking Dead: Onslaught could've been a good replacement for Arizona Sunshine if it didn't have a forced grinding problem and weapon balance issues.
Review in Russian | Read full review
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.
The Walking Dead Onslaught is, at best, a mixed bag of a game. The VR aspects are well made, Survios using their VR experience and making a very accessible title. They have also made a game that features genuinely enjoyable zombie-killing combat. However, the problem is that this combat is surrounded by several bad elements that drag it down. Level design is just bad, missions being dull, uninspired, taking place in terribly repetitive corridors. There's a massive amount of grind used to pad out the game length, acting as a barrier to story missions. Even then, the story is shoddy, the only advantage being some decent voice acting by three actors from the show. All in all, I could only recommend this to huge fans of TWD and those happy enough to deal with quite a few negatives to play some reasonably entertaining combat.
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.
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.
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.
Review in French | Read full review
A sturdy and satisfying combat system is let down by a narrative that feels like it's barely trying - though crushing a zombies skull is a must-have experience for VR newbies.
Like most developers in the virtual trenches, Survios deserves more credit for its efforts than it receives, and Onslaught will probably go down as another example of this.
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.
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.
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.
I’m probably being a bit more down on it than it deserves, because this is a good zombie-smashing VR game, but it’s just good enough that the grievances I have with it feel magnified somewhat. I want it to be that little bit better than it is, but I’ll not deny that it may be easier for some to overlook these relatively minor faults.
The Walking Dead Onslaught is not the type of licensed game that ended up surprising me. Nor was it so bad that it ended up being an endearing cheesy experience I could laugh at and have fun with. Unfortunately, it’s an uninspired title that even lacks the depth of its fellow The Walking Dead VR games.
The Walking Dead Onslaught isn’t a bad game per say, I’m sure fans of the series will find some fun in it, it’s just wholly disappointing when compared to the recently released Saints & Sinners.
Whilst The Walking Dead: Onslaught’s showdowns with zombies offer plenty of thrills, the repetitive nature of its mission design could grow a little tiresome after a while. Having to grind supply grinds to progress the story could be a bit of a drag, especially since they often consisted of the same tasks in the same areas over and over again. The way that the zombie horde is represented by a red cloud could be a little lame too, even if there wasn’t really a shortage of bite-happy zombies around you looking to get a chunk of your flesh for lunch. Still, with intensely satisfying zombie-killing action and an authentic world based around the TV show, there is plenty here for fans to enjoy. Just be ready to do a lot of the same things over and over again as you progress through its gruesome escapade.