After tackling The Karate Kid trilogy in 2024’s The Karate Kid: Street Rumble, developer Odaclick Game Studio has turned its attention to The Walking Dead. Rather than hastily condensing all 11 seasons into a single video game, the studio has wisely chosen to focus on the show’s “All-Out War” storyline from season 8, which sees Rick Grimes, Daryl Dixon, and Michonne attempt to take down Negan and his cronies. Like Street Rumble, the game presents pixel-art characters against low-poly backgrounds, but anyone expecting a similarly straightforward, retro-style scrolling brawler may be in for a surprise, for better or worse.
Over the course of seven missions, each lasting around 30 minutes, familiar locations such as the Sanctuary, Hilltop, and Alexandria provide the backdrops. True to their small-screen counterparts, each battle-hardened hero carries their trademark brain-splattering weaponry, such as Rick’s magnum, Daryl’s crossbow, and Michonne’s katana. Once Negan joins the team after completing the final mission, you’ll get to wield Lucille, his trusty barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat. Everyone can pick up different firearms and melee weapons, most of which must be scavenged from junk piles. The exception is Michonne, who won’t ever ditch her katana—not even for a heavy-hitting sledgehammer.
Going in, I mistakenly believed I had a good idea of what to expect, especially with that subtitle in mind. Surprisingly, though, calling this a scrolling beat ’em up is a little off the mark. What we have instead is a mission-based, single-player, side-scrolling action game in which stages feature both main and secondary objectives, some of which require backtracking. There are keycards to find, bombs to plant, allied survivors to assist, and a couple of simple puzzles to solve. The festering undead and any human survivors standing in your way can be dealt with using melee attacks, but firearms are even more effective at quelling crowds—to the point that blood-stained fisticuffs take second preference.
Streets of Survival offers a very limited, deliberate range of moves. Characters cannot jump -removing the ability to perform flying kicks and the like – and they cannot block, leaving them limited to rolling out of harm’s way. Combos are performed by bashing the ‘X’ button, while a single special attack, such as a dashing strike, is available on a cooldown. A strong kick can also be used to push back the hordes. Oddly, though, there’s no way to finish off or even damage downed foes; it’s simply a case of knocking them to the ground before patiently waiting for them to rise. It’s possible to run, too, with a couple of chase sequences present, while the ability to vault objects helps keep the pace swift and simplifies traversal.
Walkers are the most common adversaries, and they aren’t too problematic – even in great numbers. They’re quick to give chase, which can be used to your advantage by herding them into a group. Forcing them to trundle through a doorway then allows you to dispatch several at once with a couple of combo strings. Human survivors are trickier to deal with, especially those carrying assault rifles, as they can drain your health quickly if you don’t kill them first. One of the more interesting features is the ability to open walker cages, letting the undead loose on nearby enemy survivors. It’s good, messy fun – for ten seconds, at least.
Most stages offer a choice of two playable characters, and each of the three heroes has a unique skill tree featuring incremental damage boosts, cooldown reductions, the ability to carry extra health packs, and increased critical-hit rates. Michonne later gains a life-steal ability, which proves useful.
Searching for weapons in junk piles and healing with bandages are both tasks that take a few seconds, leaving you exposed. If you’re short on time while healing, you won’t recover the maximum amount of HP. This isn’t too detrimental, as health packs are common drops—sometimes even appearing mid-boss fight—and there are checkpoints whenever you enter a new area. The boss battles are a step up from those seen in Street Rumble, with each offering something unique. The battle against Simon relies entirely on ranged weapons, while a fight against an electrified walker entails switching off the power by flipping switches in the correct order. Bosses may require a couple of attempts, but fortunately, there’s always a checkpoint just before each encounter.
The seven stages are quite distinct from one another, most having a secondary objective such as finding a key to a weapon store or underground cellar. Around halfway there’s a choice of attacking a power plant, stealing weapons, or sabotaging a vehicle. This doesn’t impact later missions, mind you, which is a missed opportunity. Even with optional quests, you’re likely going to blitz through this within an afternoon. There’s a wave-based walker-filled mosh pit to endure, and once Negan is unlocked the focus shifts to replaying stages to see everything and max out skill trees. Every stage has a handful of collectables too, all of which are items seen in the show, and likely recognisable to fans.
That’s the clincher, really. This is for the fans. The fighting system isn’t adequate to satisfy scrolling brawler fans, feeling too restrictive and sloppy. It won’t ever lead to a swift demise, but you may be left shaking your head at some things you’re able to get away with, killing an entire room full of walkers in one fell swoop by forcing them together. The lack of a co-op mode – a genre staple ever since Double Dragon – is another reason why I’d hesitate to call this a scrolling brawler. What we’ve ended up with instead is kind of admirable, being grander in scope while providing fans a chance to relive moments from the show. The amount of fan service is doing a lot of heavy lifting, carrying the experience from start to finish, and while it is quite short, there is still potential for fun – mostly because of how aptly brainless the walkers are.
Trailmark Games’ The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is out 18th September on all formats. Developed by Odaclick Game Studio.