This is Robert Kirkman from Skybound and I am the creator of The Walking Dead.
I’m a huge fan of what OVERKILL and Starbreeze have been able to do with PAYDAY 2. It’s just an amazing co-operative game and I’m excited to be able to announce that Skybound is partnering with OVERKILL to make a Walking Dead game. I’m happy to say that it’s the co-op game that all of the Walking Dead fans have been waiting for.
And for all the PAYDAY 2 fans out there, this is for you.
Robert
Skybound Entertainment
OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead Q&A
Q: What is OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead?
A: OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is a co-op first person shooter with elements of action, role-playing, survival horror and stealth, that invites players to explore the hugely popular The Walking Dead universe, where they will play the role of survivors fending for themselves in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by flesh-eating walkers. In 2016 Washington will fall - what will you do?
Q: When will OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead be released?
A: OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is currently under development by OVERKILL - a Starbreeze Studio and will be released in 2016.
Q: On which platforms will OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead be available?
A: The platforms OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead will be released on are to be announced at a later date.
Q: What age rating will it have?
A: If you have read The Walking Dead comics, you will know that this game will be for mature audiences only. We are staying true to the original, gruesome storytelling that Robert is famous for and that we know that the fans of The Walking Dead love.
Q: Why do you call OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead an indie game?
A: For the first time ever Starbreeze Studios, one of Europe’s oldest independent developers, is both developer and publisher of a game. Starbreeze Studios is a relatively small developer studio consisting of 45 Starbreeze and OVERKILL game developers. Thanks to our success with the PAYDAY franchise along with our partnership with Skybound Interactive - the owners of The Walking Dead - we are able to cut out the middleman and have a direct relationship to our community, focusing on making the best game we possibly can together.
Q: Who will develop OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead?
A: OVERKILL - a Starbreeze Studio has partnered up with Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, and Skybound Interactive to create the most intense survival horror game we possibly can. OVERKILL, developers of the PAYDAY series, will be in charge of development and will have full creative control.
Q: I’m a PAYDAY 2 heister - how does this affect me?
A: PAYDAY 2 and OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead are two separate games - but, in true OVERKILL spirit, we’ll make some unprecedented crossovers. When Washington falls, what will Dallas do? If you own PAYDAY 2, you can answer this question in OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead.
Q: What’s the deal with the Lucille baseball bat in PAYDAY 2?
A: To commemorate the collaboration between the companies, an exclusive weapon, the “Lucille” baseball bat from The Walking Dead, will be offered to the PAYDAY 2 community for free to be used in-game in PAYDAY 2.
Q: Where can I go if I want to discuss this with others?
A: Please join our PAYDAY community and discuss OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead in our sub-forum which you can find here. http://steamcommunity.com/app/218620/discussions/
Q: What will happen with PAYDAY 2?
A: The development of PAYDAY 2 updates and DLC will proceed as planned. We have at least one year of planned content that we look forward to releasing to our community.
Q: What will happen with STORM?
A: As previously communicated, STORM is still on our road map.
The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.
Is this some kind of trend that every opening trailer for zombie games has little girl in mortal danger/dying/dead/etc?
That aside, it seems like someone wan's to push the King from the Hill. I'm not sure why do we need another Left 4 Dead clone ("zombies", "coop") when L4D3 and L4D2 source2 is coming out relatively soon in future, but more than that, taking into account whole Payday2 shit - I don't know why we need a game with DLC fest. A Left 4 Dead clone that is ABSOLUTELY NOT FUN TO PLAY unless you have shitloads of dlcs that adds spoken fun. Hmm, this sounds familair, where did I see this... oh right, PayForDLCDay 2.
Actually it is pretty good. I was hating it bad but when I tried the game during one free weekend I loved it. Its big guilty pleasure title. I prefer semi or full realistic tactical shooters so I was very skeptical but there's something special in the game. I don't know what exactly but its awesome.
Well it will be a lot better than that other crap we got. At least the shooting will be good, I thought that Payday 2 had rather good movement/shooting mechanics when I played that free weekend. Game itself was a bit repetitive, but not bad at all.
We'll see how it turns out, hope we can have 1 good action game out of that IP.
This game won't require too much hard work for Overkill, they just need to re-skin the hordes of insta-respawning braindead policemen, add some wrecked cars and corpses here and there and that's it. Co-op Walking Dead game achieved
The upcoming Walking Dead game in development from the studio behind Payday: The Heist will include cooperative online gameplay and be "Payday-esque," said The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman at a SXSW panel today.
"I can say that it will be Payday-esque because [Starbreeze and Overkill] are currently doing Payday," Kirkman said. "But I'm told it will be in a bigger world than Payday currently encompasses. They are going to be learning a lot of stuff from Payday that they will be incorporating into The Walking Dead game.
"There will be announcements about that game very soon."
In an onstage fireside chat with me during SXSW, entitled "Creator Activism: A Discussion with Robert Kirkman," the man behind the comic and television shows said that one reason Skybound has had such success with the video games based on their properties is because they're not marketing tools.
"One thing that we are doing, which I think is very cool about the Telltale game and the Starbreeze game and Air game is that they are all licensed games, and licensed games are usually somewhat crappy, but thankfully our's aren't," he said. "The key I think, which is very important, is that we're not doing, 'Hey, it's Daryl Dixon running around shooting zombies, because you like Daryl Dixon.' Or 'It's Rick Grimes doing this because you like Rick Grimes.' We're telling our own stories and doing our own things almost as if they are original games."
"So instead of like it being a derivative experience, where you kind of enjoyed a movie so you're playing a game and it's not as good as the movie and there is some lame things about it, we're doing a thing that is its own experience that stands on its own as a cool game, rather than a licensing barnacle to this popular movie," Kirkman said. "That's the thing we try to do with all of our things. Try to come up with a way to make it exist in its own right, as opposed to cashing in on the success of The Walking Dead or whatever we are doing."
Another important element to Skybound's successes so far is that they don't try to tie the release of the games to any sort of schedule for the original product.
Games have room to breathe and time to turn into wonderful, standalone creations, he said.
"With most licensed games, the company looks at it as a marketing tool and not a game, and the release date is set in stone," he said. "The marketing for the game is marketing for the thing, and the game is supposed to build brand awareness. So those release dates are set in stone.
"Most licensed games have some lackluster element to them because it's like, 'You have to hit this date, sorry,'" he said. "We'll just push things back and make it good."
As the panel wrapped up, Kirkman responded to a question from the audience about Overkill's The Walking Dead and cooperative online play.
"I think it is pretty safe to say that the Starbreeze game will be online and interactive," he said. "It is [safe to say] and it is [online] and i just said it.
"Payday is an online cooperative game correct? Yes," he said. "So it will be it will follow a similar approach. That's good news."
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But still... hope!
