The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
| The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| VR/AR | Virtual Reality |
| Developer | Skydance Interactive |
| Publisher | Skydance Interactive |
| Platform | SteamVR, Meta Quest, PlayStation VR, PlayStation VR2 |
| Device | Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Oculus Quest, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, PlayStation VR, PlayStation VR2, PICO 4 |
| Operating System | Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 |
| Type | Game |
| Genre | Survival horror, First-person shooter |
| Input Device | Tracked Motion Controllers |
| Play Area | Room-scale, Standing, seated |
| Game Mode | Single-player |
| Release Date | PC VR (Steam / Oculus) - January 23 2020; PlayStation VR - May 5 2020; Oculus Quest - October 13 2020; PICO 4 - January 23 2023 |
| App Store | Steam, Meta Quest Store, PlayStation Store |
| Website | https://skydance.com/interactive/walking-dead-saints-sinners/ |
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is a virtual reality survival-horror and first-person shooter game developed and published by Skydance Interactive in partnership with Skybound Entertainment, the company behind Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic series. It first released on PC VR through Steam and the Oculus PC store on January 23, 2020, with later versions for PlayStation VR in May 2020, Oculus Quest in October 2020, and PICO 4 in January 2023.[1][2]
Set in a flooded, post-outbreak New Orleans, the game casts the player as a survivor known as "the Tourist" who navigates two warring factions while scavenging for supplies and a rumored military cache. It is built around physics-driven melee combat, hand-based weapon handling, crafting, and resource scarcity rather than the wave-shooting common to earlier VR zombie titles.[1][3] The game earned generally favorable reviews and became one of the higher-grossing VR releases of its era: Skydance reported more than US$29 million in revenue in its first year and the franchise passed roughly US$100 million by January 2024.[2][4]
Gameplay
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is played from a first-person perspective using tracked motion controllers, which map directly to the player's hands for interacting with the world. Combat with the undead (called "walkers") is physics-based: the player physically swings, stabs, and pries melee weapons, and finishing a downed walker requires driving a blade or spike into its skull, a mechanic players call "braining."[1][5] Weapons degrade with use and can break, pushing players to scavenge and craft replacements.[1]
Ranged options include bows and firearms, with guns reloaded by manually inserting magazines and chambering rounds. Loud gunfire attracts more walkers, and a recurring church bell rings each evening to summon a horde, applying time pressure to exploration.[1][5] Between expeditions the player returns to a home base (a school bus) to craft weapons, tools, and consumables from a linear recipe tree using salvaged components.[1] Resource management extends to the survivor's own stamina and health, and choices made toward the two factions, "The Tower" and "The Reclaimed," shape the outcome of the story.[1][3]
The game shipped with a single-player campaign. A free update called The Meatgrinder added a wave-based survival mode named "The Trial," in which players fight escalating waves of walkers and earn an in-game currency to unlock equipment.[1][6]
Development
The game was developed by Skydance Interactive, the interactive division of Skydance Media, under license from Skybound Entertainment.[3][6] It uses Unreal Engine 4.[1] Rather than adapting characters from the comics or television series, Skydance built an original story set in the same universe, focusing on moral choice and the physical, deliberate violence that motion controls make possible.[3][5]
After launch, Skydance supported the game with free content. The Meatgrinder update introduced The Trial mode and a higher difficulty setting.[6] A larger free expansion, Aftershocks, released on September 23, 2021 across PC VR, Oculus Quest, and PlayStation VR, adding end-game missions, new threats, and additional story that set up the sequel; Skydance described it as four to six hours of new content.[6]
The original game later returned on newer hardware. A PlayStation VR2 release, branded the "Tourist Edition," brought Chapter 1 to Sony's headset, and an enhanced Chapter 1 launched on Meta Quest 3. First announced for fall 2023 and then delayed, the free Quest 3 update went live on January 16, 2024, adding higher environmental detail, dynamic shadows from the flashlight, and a higher on-screen walker count.[7][8] A sequel, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution, released on Meta Quest 2 in December 2022 and on PlayStation VR2 and Steam in 2023.[1]
Release
| Platform | Headsets | Release date |
|---|---|---|
| PC VR (Steam, Oculus PC) | Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index | January 23, 2020 |
| PlayStation VR | PlayStation VR (PS4) | May 5, 2020 |
| Oculus Quest | Oculus Quest, Meta Quest 2 | October 13, 2020 |
| PICO 4 | PICO 4 | January 23, 2023 |
| PlayStation VR2 (Tourist Edition) | PlayStation VR2 (PS5) | 2023 |
| Meta Quest 3 (enhanced) | Meta Quest 3 | January 16, 2024 |
Reception
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners received generally favorable reviews. The review aggregator Metacritic lists the PC version at 81/100 and the PlayStation 4 version at 79/100.[9] Road to VR scored the game 9/10, calling it genuinely terrifying and praising the physical, improvisational combat and the weight of its moral choices.[5] Reviewers generally singled out the tactile combat and survival tension; some noted performance issues on lower-end PC hardware.[1]
It was nominated for Best VR/AR Game at The Game Awards 2020, an award won by Half-Life: Alyx, and for Immersive Reality Game of the Year at the 24th D.I.C.E. Awards in 2021.[10][1]
Commercially the game was among the stronger performers of its generation. Skydance reported that it earned more than US$29 million in revenue in its first year on sale, and that the Oculus Quest version sold about ten times as many copies as the Oculus Rift and Oculus Rift S versions combined.[2][11] By January 2022 the title had passed roughly US$60 million in revenue, and in January 2024 Skydance said the wider Saints & Sinners franchise had generated close to US$100 million since launch.[12][4]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead:_Saints_%26_Sinners.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Surpasses 29M in Revenue". 2021-01-25. https://www.roadtovr.com/walking-dead-saints-sinners-29-million-revenue/.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners". https://skydance.com/interactive/walking-dead-saints-sinners/.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners VR Franchise Tops 100 Million". 2024-01-18. https://www.roadtovr.com/walking-dead-saints-sinner-100-million/.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Review - Satisfyingly Drenched in Existential Angst". 2020-01-23. https://www.roadtovr.com/the-walking-dead-saints-sinners-review-vr/.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Aftershocks Update Coming Sept 23". 2021-08. https://www.roadtovr.com/walking-dead-saints-sinners-aftershocks-oculus-quest/.
- ↑ "Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Quest 3 Update Arrives Next Month". 2023-12-06. https://www.uploadvr.com/the-walking-dead-saints-sinners-quest-3-release-date/.
- ↑ "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Finally Gets a Facelift on Quest 3". 2024-01-16. https://mixed-news.com/en/the-walking-dead-saints-sinners-quest-3-update/.
- ↑ "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Reviews". https://www.metacritic.com/game/the-walking-dead-saints-and-sinners/.
- ↑ "Half-Life: Alyx Wins Best VR/AR At The Game Awards". 2020-12-10. https://www.uploadvr.com/game-awards-2020-winners/.
- ↑ "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Made 29 Million In Its First Year". 2021-01-25. https://www.uploadvr.com/walking-dead-saints-sinners-sales/.
- ↑ "The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Surpasses 60M in Revenue Since Launch". 2022-01. https://www.roadtovr.com/walking-dead-saints-sinners-50m-revenue/.