Developed by Odaclick Game Studio and published by Trailmark Games, The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is a brand-new beat ‘em up set in the world of the hit AMC zombie apocalypse show The Walking Dead. The beat ‘em up is one of my favourite video game genres, and growing up with titles like the SNES’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I have a long history with many similar games. Naturally, when I heard that we were about to get a title set in the universe of The Walking Dead, I was curious to see how the developer pulls it off because this universe has massive potential for a great beat ‘em up title. This is our review of the PC Steam version of The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival, in which we kill thousands of zombies while playing as iconic characters from the franchise.
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is based on the All Out War storyline and brings back multiple locations from the show. The story progression takes place in a standard mission format where you complete one main mission and then progress to the next. The story unfolds across these missions, with each one moving the narrative forward. The game also includes optional story missions that provide additional background or allow you to explore the story of some side characters who are not crucial to the main story. I will not spoil the story too much in this review, but it has a decent storyline, and if you are a fan of the show, you will enjoy this little detour as well.
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is not an exact follow-up of the show’s story but rather re-imagines the story with the Saviors, who serve as your primary enemies in the game, along with the undead. Apart from your regular zombies and Savior members, which serve as your cannon fodder, you will often come across tougher variations of both the zombies and human enemies. Each level also ends with a boss battle, and some areas will have the boss continuously following you around, which makes the level a little tougher to manage.
When I first started playing the game, instead of jumping into the story mission, I decided to jump into a side mission where I had to visit a Scavengers camp and look for some help. As soon as I arrived here, I was continuously followed by an invincible boss zombie, Winslow, who stalked me throughout the level, and it was right at the end that I managed to finally kill it and get rid of it. I had to scavenge for resources, complete mission objectives, and fend off other zombies while simultaneously avoiding the devastating attacks of Winslow, which was able to kill me with a single shot. It was one of the few moments when Streets of Survival managed to create genuine tension despite its straightforward beat ’em up structure.
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival features four different characters, including Rick, Michonne, Nigel, and Daryl. What I liked about the game is that each character has their own unique style of playing. No character feels the same. The overall gameplay style is the same, but each character brings their signature weapons and moves to the table. Rick is heavier and feels a little slow, but his attacks pack a punch. Daryl has speedier attacks, but they deal less damage compared to the other characters. Michonne is nimble on her feet, and she can slice through enemies with her sword. Similarly, Nigel is a mix between heaviness and agility, bringing a balanced option for players. For missions, you can only select those characters that are partaking in that scenario. In certain missions, you may have a single choice of character, but in another mission, you may have access to three. It all depends on the mission that you are trying to play.
Coming to the gameplay of The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival, it is your typical beat ‘em up gameplay style where you have to move left, right, up, and down on a screen and defeat incoming enemies. You have your basic melee attack combo along with a heavy attack, which requires it to be recharged before you can use it again. You can combine light and heavy attacks to deliver powerful combos that mix melee weapons and punches. Apart from melee attacks, you can use a character’s signature weapon to deal additional damage. In the case of guns or bows, you will need to have sufficient ammo.
You can also pick up additional melee weapons and guns during levels, which are one-time use. In the case of melee pickups, they have a life as well, and once their life reaches zero, they are removed from your inventory. Guns are removed when they run out of ammo. The combat is satisfying at its core, but it lacks the smoothness and fluidity I expect from a modern beat ’em up. Characters like Rick are a little slow, and while they are attacking, they cannot move or turn around, so you have to stop attacks, turn or move, and then attack again. This is another classic beat ‘em up mechanic, so if you have played multiple titles, you will feel at home here.
While most missions are restrictive, there are always some extra rooms that you can explore if you can manage to open their doors by finding keys or other items. These secret areas provide lore items, ammo, or sometimes weapons. Another cool gameplay mechanic is that the characters will slide over any obstacles while sprinting. Sprinting has its own key, and I was a little disappointed that double-tapping a direction key does not allow sprinting. You can also crouch to make less noise, but there is not a lot of stealth in the game. You can mostly just brute force your way through enemies unless it is a story requirement to use stealth.
You can also pick Knowledge from defeated enemies, which serves as the primary currency of the game. Each character has a detailed Skill Tree where you can upgrade their skills and weapons by spending Knowledge points. Higher-tier upgrades are unlocked once you meet specific kill count milestones. As you unlock and progress through each character’s skill tree, you notice that you have more combo options to land, your attacks become powerful, and you can survive tougher battles without healing items. This progression gives you a reason to replay missions and keep experimenting with each character, particularly on higher difficulty levels.
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival offers four difficulty options, and it is absolutely brutal on tougher difficulties. While the game may be a beat ‘em up, I like how the developer has kept that sense of survival still intact. The ammo is still scarce, and you cannot just run and gun everywhere. You still have to manage your healing kits and ammo wisely. Using health kits is also not just as simple as pressing a button. You have to hold the button and keep it down until your character can finish healing. If you are attacked in the middle, or if you leave it in the middle, the health kit is gone, and you are left with partial health regeneration.
Apart from the main story, you have The Walker Pit mode where you can jump into an arena and try your skills with any character that you like. In this mode, you must face endless waves of zombies with bosses and try to last as long as you can. This is the only side mode in the game and is good for allowing players to hone their skills and slay as many zombies as they like. Overall, The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival offers fairly decent replayability value with its story missions. I would have preferred it if the story missions removed the character limitations in re-runs, as it would have given new ways to complete the story missions with different characters, but you can always go back and try the levels after upgrading yourself to see how much difference it makes.
The pixelated visual style is distinctive, but it also prevents the game from delivering the oppressive atmosphere I expected from The Walking Dead. I love its visuals, but it is very hard to actually get scared in the game. It does get tough when suddenly a door opens, and a huge zombie horde descends on your position, but you do not get that atmospheric feeling while exploring different locations. Your basic melee combo attacks are also more than sufficient to eliminate a horde of any size, but you have to rely on dodging because there were many cases where the zombies ignored my attacks and managed to land their own attacks through my combo. The cutscenes are simple dialogue lines with game visuals in the background, and there is very little audio dialogue.
Coming to the technical aspect of The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival, the game is optimized pretty well. I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs or glitches during my playthrough. The game is not that demanding, so I did not really notice any framerate dips at any point as well. The zombies or enemies did not get stuck behind any sort of invisible walls, and I was able to move without glitching out as well.
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Final Verdict:
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is a solid 2D beat ’em up that makes good use of its license while retaining the survival elements that define The Walking Dead. Its satisfying combat, character variety, challenging encounters, skill progression, and Walker Pit mode provide a good amount of entertainment, while the scarce ammunition and healing resources add an appreciated layer of tension. However, combat can feel rigid, enemy variety is limited, and the restrictive character selection and lack of substantial content outside the main missions hurt its replayability. The pixelated presentation also struggles to capture the atmosphere of the source material. Despite these shortcomings, Streets of Survival delivers an enjoyable beat ’em up experience, particularly for fans of The Walking Dead and the genre, even if it starts to feel repetitive once you have seen most of what it has to offer.
Final Score: 7.5/10
Disclaimer: A PC Steam code for The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival was provided by Sandbox Strategies on behalf of Trailmark Games. For a detailed breakdown of our scoring and review process, please refer to our Review Policy.
