The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival GBAtemp review
PlayStation 5
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): September 18, 2026
- Release Date (EU): September 18, 2026
- Publisher: Trailmark Games, LLC
- Developer: Odaclick Game Studio
- Genres: Beat 'em Up
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- PEGI Rating: Sixteen years and older
- Also For: Computer, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S
Game Features:
The Walking Dead is a series that I, for one reason or another, could never get into. Perhaps I'm not enough of a zombie fan, perhaps I didn't gel with any of the characters, or perhaps it was crap; I don't know. But what I do know is video games, and when I saw this mash-up of zombie survival horror and 2D retro-inspired beat 'em up, I couldn't say no to dipping my toe into the world of The Walking Dead but on my terms.
Stepping into the boots of three of the core characters in the "All Out War" storyline (TV's season 8), you'll find Daryl Dixon with his crossbow, Rick Grimes with his .357 Magnum, and Michonne with her katana, you can also unlock Negan and his trusty wooden friend Lucile after beating the game once on any difficulty. There are four difficulties to choose from, ranging from "Easy" up to "Hell on Earth", but I opted to sit in the middle on Normal for my first playthrough, because I had no idea what to expect other than perhaps a zombified tongue-in-cheek variant of "Streets of Rage".
2D Pixel Art Style, 3D Environments
As a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up, The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival certainly looks the part. The main characters and NPCs are drawn as wonderfully stylised 2D sprites, and the objects and environments that funnel you around the scenes are all fully 3D, yet purposefully low-resolution textured to look 2D.
I loved the lighting in most of the scenes; it's clearly casting shadows and illuminating bespoke areas as points of interest, and gives those otherwise flat characters a little depth upon their plane. This gives you perspective as to where your character is standing in terms of distance to the camera or to the far rear boundary of the environment. This is critical too, because there is a lot of weaving through objects, navigating through terrain and searching for quest items that needs your character's manoeuvrability to be precise and visually readable throughout.
Controlling the game is, I think, quite involved for a 2D game. You move with the left stick, interact with Cross, dodge and run with Circle, and melee weapon attack with R1, and attack with Square (light) or Triangle (heavy). You can also switch weapons with the up and down buttons on the D-pad or heal with the left or right buttons. Simple so far, isn't it?
In addition to those staples of 99.9% of most side-scrolling beat 'em ups, we have projectile systems, meaning that we can aim and target with L2, fire guns and launchers with R2. We can also throw our melee weapon with a combination of R1 and Triangle, which feels completely unintuitive when we already have an aiming and firing system.
It has to be noted that the aiming feels extremely janky, with the reticle itself choosing whether or not to be on-screen and becoming quite frustrating at points. Gunning down zombies is easy; they come straight towards you, but when you're flanking human enemies it's almost impossible to get a good angle, and aim and get a shot off in time, let alone a critical or shield breaking hit.
Using L3 to crouch behind cover and controlling the camera with the right stick added a little MGS-like stealth to some sections, which felt like a nice switch-up to the otherwise relentless brawling bloodbath.
For the most part, I used the Triangle attack as a shield breaker, and combinations of Square and Triangle to scrap my way out of the undead crowds. Some of the hordes reached sizes of 10-15 enemies, which was quite overwhelming in places, but it feels progressive and exhilarating to battle them all and eventually come out the other side unscathed. Failing that, you can just run off and vault over an object to gain some distance, then use ranged attacks over those objects to claw back some semblance of control.
12 Levels, Hunt for Info & Supplies
Throughout the game, you must undertake a variety of missions. Be it recon, assassination or fetch quests, each one is as engaging and fresh as they can be for what is essentially a tried-and-tested repetitive beat 'em up formula seen in countless video games, though this one often culminates in either a tense one-on-one stand-off or being completely engulfed by the living (walking) dead.
As a newcomer to the shows biomes and set pieces, I can imagine that the environments must be familiar to show-lovers, and the feeling of stepping into the shoes of these characters quite enthralling. For me, I really enjoyed the variety of backdrops and the undulating power struggle of Rick vs Negan, emphasising alliance juxtaposed with conflict as well as the lust for humanities survival punctuated by greed and selfishness.
During your jaunt across Sanctuary, Hilltop, and Alexandria, you find knowledge and earn skill points, which help expand each characters individual skill tree by buffing certain things, such as ammunition capacity, reload speed, healing proficiency, enhancing critical hit-ability, (slightly) better aiming, and melee weapon fatigue rates.
You can easily farm skill points by replaying missions and increasing the difficulty, but by rotating characters and playing missions you're comfortable with, you can level up the entire roster quite quickly to make everyone feel OP.
Ammunition is in scarce supply, even more scarce if played on greater difficulties, so you need to conserve your rounds for the moments in which you need the most. These moments are almost never planned for, so having as many shells, bullets and bolts stowed in your Inventory, alongside as many heals as you can carry, is a must.
You can perform a number of "finishers" on the enemies too. These animations punctuate the end of combinations that you hammer into your controller, and the 2D blood and guts effects are quite nice crescendos to the button-bashing fury of the moment.
Big Boss Fights, Bigger Hordes to Deal With
In the final stages of each mission, you encounter larger-than-life boss fights. The first one you come across is a bloated walker who is a BIG dinner. Prior to getting into the boss fight area, you go through a quiet, sanctuary-like area that gifts you plenty of boxes to open and heals to collect, which is the biggest indicator in a video game that something big is ahead of you.
Entering the fray, you not only have a large rampaging foe to defeat, but you also have a continual stream of zombies to deal with. I found it quite easy to figure out attack patterns and formulate combinations of shield break, melee, melee, melee, then roll out of the danger zone of the boss's charged attack, then turning 180-degrees and aggressively drop kicking crowd of brain-eaters to the ground, giving me time to ready up my next assault.
Some levels have Mr-X/Nemesis-like enemies that stalk you through the stages. Winslow follows and chases you around a junkyard in the second set of missions, which I thought was quite a nice modern mechanic to see in a 2D game. It adds time pressure to finding things, breaking down barriers and evading the other undead grunts by sprinkling on a little more high-stakes danger. Especially because he's immune to every attack.
Overall, I really enjoyed The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival for it being an extremely playable/re-playable crossover between the zombie genre and traditional 2D beat 'em ups, and for capturing the essence of the TV series in an easily digestible and reasonably chilled looting form.
The game is just £17.99 which seems a lot for a couple of hour gameplay per character, but honestly, even if you're not a fan of the show, this game is extremely playable and it draws you back in to level up your team and unlock everything there is to find, including the 39 trophies for the achievement hunters!
Verdict
- 12 levels to explore.
- Large overwhelming hordes and bosses.
- Plenty of weapons, collectables and trophies to unlock.
- Just 2-3 hours of game play per character.
- The aiming system is horribly janky.
