The Walking Dead has been wildly successful since it landed on the scene, but it hasn’t quite been able to transition that same success to video-games besides the initial TellTale series. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is here to change that with a game that perfectly captures the brutal tone the series is known for.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Developer: Skydance Interactive
Price: $40
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Upon starting the game you’ll find yourself playing as “The Tourist,” who’s coming to New Orleans to look for a hidden cache of supplies that could set you up real nice. In your way however, are various human factions looking to take control of the city and the zombie horde itself. As you’re creeping through dilapidated city streets, you’ll also come across people just trying to survive and the game’s title comes into play here with you having the ability to either help or murder these people which could affect how others interact with you.
Saints & Sinners controls like practically every other VR shooter you’ve played before. You’ll grab items with the triggers and play with a host of weapons from bows, guns, axes, and even shoes. You’ll be able to fight off the undead with a wide range of items, it’s just how creative (or desperate) you’re feeling at the moment. A particularly fun feature is the ability to grab onto pretty much anything; whether you can move the object or not is another thing entirely but for the most part you can at least grip most objects. Where this feature stands out most is in being able to grab onto enemies themselves. A few times I had to grab a walker by the head to hold it in place while using my other arm to aim a gun at another approaching walker; or one moment where I held an enemy steady while using a blade to slice their head clean off and seeing the decapitated head still bite at me still in my hand. There’s no other way to describe it than super fucking cool; it’s something that helps immerse you into a game that, thanks to the platform it’s on, lives or dies by its ability to pull you into its world.
As much of a plot as Saints & Sinners has, it’s a survival game through and through with a health/stamina system you need to stay on top of and a focus on scavenging for materials to craft better gear and upgrades. If you’re feeling brave enough you can go guns blazing into an encounter, but Saints & Sinners also offers a quieter approach with ways to stealth through areas by sneaking through alleys or even climbing up ledges to reach higher vantage points.
New Orleans itself is open for you to explore as it’s split between a handful of semi-open locations you can travel between, but you need to be always cognizant of the time. The game takes place in “days,” where you’ll have till night comes to do all the tasks you need before having to return to your home base. Are you going to focus on the main story today, search for a side-mission, or maybe just loot for supplies to build that upgrade you’ve been eyeballing? The game leaves that all up to you. Take too long in an area however and you’ll hear the ominous rings of the church bell, drawing in a massive horde of walkers to your location which is a situation you most definitely do not want to be in.
Where Saints & Sinners stands out is in the details. There’s nothing quite like crouching up to an enemy, picking up a bottle, smashing said bottle on their head, then flipping it in your hand and using the newly sharpened end of the bottle to stab into them. It’s a visceral experience when you’re in the heat of the moment and the physicality of it sells the entire experience. At one point I had to fend off two walkers with just a sharpened spoon I had found, and I was able to put both down with some clever maneuvering and efficient stabs.
There’s this really satisfying crunch to the combat. From the way guns feel when they fire, to the sickening sound a sharp weapon makes when you sink it into an enemy’s brain, and the subsequent panic that kicks in as you manically try to yank said item out as more walkers are heading your way. It all coalesces into what’s easily one of the most satisfying VR experiences I’ve had since SUPERHOT.
Saints & Sinners isn’t without its faults however. Something it doesn’t really do very well is communicate various aspects of the game to you. In regards to side-quests, the game doesn’t ever communicate that you need to finish them before the day’s up or else you’ll fail that quest and lose it forever. It’s a lesson you’ll learn once, but it’s incredibly frustrating to spend an entire day in an area working on a quest only to rush to your boat when the horde comes, expecting to turn the quest in the next day, and being told that it’s failed. As the days progress, you’re told supplies are dwindling and walkers are becoming more prevalent but as I played I never really noticed either statement being the case. I’d go back to the same location and there’d still be the same amount of loot to find and, generally, the same amount of walkers as well so it makes you wonder whether or not it’s just flavor text. The game also doesn’t mention whether there’s a strict timer on the “days” that you have to be aware of, a la Dead Rising. It seems like it just goes on and on, but again, the uncertainty kicks in.
The Final Word
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is one of those games people are going to look at and say “This is why you should buy into VR”. Saints & Sinners is a thrilling, nail-biting experience that I won’t soon forget.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
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