10 years ago this week, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct was released on Wii U in North America. Based on the popular TV show The Walking Dead, the game was developed by Terminal Reality and published by Activision and was also released on Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Terminal Reality was known for developing Terminal Velocity as well as the BloodRayne series and Nocturne but by 2013, they had made some licensed games such as Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Def Jam Rapstar, and Kinect Star Wars. While the successful episodic game The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series had already begun releasing in 2012, this was the franchise's first attempt at a survival game.
The story explores Daryl Dixon's (voiced by Norman Reedus) background during the early days of the outbreak, following him and his brother Merle as they attempt to survive. As this is a survival game, players must strategize how they will use their resources such as fuel, ammo and food. Players can add other survivors to their group, and they can either fight zombies (a.k.a. walkers) or sneak past them. The Wii U version allows for touchscreen inventory management as well as Off-TV Play, though the game can be beaten with a Pro Controller.
Every version of the game was panned. Critics disliked the glitches as well as inconsistent gameplay, mediocre graphics, unresponsive controls and minimal GamePad support. They also had high expectations for the story given the source material while the plot in this game is largely meaningless with Daryl just going from place to place trying to survive. Ultimately, critics agreed that the game had a lot of wasted potential and was a cash-grab while suggesting ZombiU as a better zombie survival game on Wii U.
The game likely did not sell well given this was Terminal Reality's final game before closing down in late 2013. However, the company was revived years later for modern ports of their Bloodrayne games and Terminal Velocity with Ziggurat Interactive. The Walking Dead would continue to receive games including more seasons from Telltale on pretty much every system that was in production at the time except Wii U and 3DS. There would also be plenty of mobile and board games based on the show as well as a few games on consoles. The show would continue until the airing of its eleventh and final season in 2021-22.
Did you play this game? Did you like it? Did you play ZombiU as well and which did you prefer?
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