The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

- Reviewed on PSVR -

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners released on January 23rd, 2020.

Developed by the well renowned Walking Dead partners at Skybound Entertainment, as well as, Skydance Interactive, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is an award nominated VR title that has potential to be quite possibly the best VR experience to date (as of writing this blog post / in my opinion)!

Available on many VR platforms today, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners puts you in control of yet another apocalypse survivor, based in the ever-expanding universe of The Walking Dead.

This review WILL have Major Spoilers so keep that in mind before continuing...

It may be recency bias, but The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners was an absolute blast to experience in PSVR, especially after already playing (and fully completing) The Walking Dead Onslaught. 

I couldn't help but compare the two VR titles as The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is vastly superior in many aspects discussed later on.

We'll start off with the plot of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which was very simple, yet fun to participate in within the world of VR.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners takes place in the state of Louisiana, specifically the run-down city of New Orleans. 

The main plot is about 15 hours in length and actually can go by extremely fast if you were to try and speed run it (or even just take your time, like I did). 

You play as a protagonist named the Tourist where you (SPOILER) meet a survivor named Henri and he tells you all about the Walker infested city, and its hostile, human counterpart.

After the campfire cutscene and boat ride to the Cemetery, which is a part of the main hub world, you will come across your main base of operations... a school bus.

The school bus has a large chest to store items, three work benches to upgrade items within different categories, a map of the plethora of levels, a bed to sleep in to advance the days, and most importantly, a radio in which to chat with Casey, listen in for caches, or listen to bad music (if that's your thing). 

To access the many uses of the radio, you actually had to turn the radio knob in VR to listen in, which again, the littlest things like that were so cool and enjoyable compared to other VR games I'd experienced (as of writing this blog post). 

Casey is / was the main character to tell you about the plot going forward on the radio, and (along with all NPC dialogues) you got to choose what you wanted to say as the fully voiced protagonist!

I wasn't a fan of the fact that you had to listen to the NPCs talk for the entire conversation before the reply prompt appeared. 

Having to stand there in VR and just wait for characters to talk over and over again (if you needed to restart the level or so), was a big hassle, especially with the lack of a button to skip said dialogue. 

What I love about The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, however, is the complete freedom to shape and form how the story unfolds / ends. 

All your choices have consequences and the way you play, will resemble either a Saint or a Sinner. 

There are two factions you can choose to join in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. These being the Tower and the Reclaimed. 

The locations in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners include...

    - New Orleans

    - The Resting Place

    - The Shallows

    - Via Carolla

    - Memorial Lane

    - Rampart

    - Bastion

    - Bywater

    - Old Town

    - The Ward

    - The Tower

    - Bourbon Street

    - Hotel E'claire

My biggest issue with the plot of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is that the ending was not satisfying at all! 

When credits rolled, I genuinely felt I was only a third of the way done with the story and when it ended, I was left feeling confused, underwhelmed, and full of additional questions.

Focusing on the work benches, the main goal of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is to collect junk, of all varieties, bring back the junk (in your accessible / interactive backpack) to the bus, recycle it in the bin inside, and use those broken-down pieces to build and / or upgrade items. 

The three work bench categories are Survival, Gear, and Guns. 

When you approach each bench, you can grab notes on the boards and track items you still need, craft the items if you have everything, or just read what each item can do.

After your all geared up, you can then check your Journal. When you're playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, you have essentially six different interactive objects on you at all times. 

Your right side of your chest has your Journal, your left side has a Flashlight to shake and power on (and recharge), your back right has your heavy (two handed) weapons, your back left side has your backpack, and your hip holsters hold your two pistols and / or blunt weapons.

The Journal has all your collected recipes, inventory stats, tasks, mini maps, and more to constantly observe and study. 

Unlike other games that don't truly require such a feature, you will definitely need the Journal for your playthroughs as they are a must for cache related missions (using photos to find the hidden areas and what not). 

With all this being said, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners' controls can be extremely confusing and hard to memorize unlike The Walking Dead Onslaught. 

The button's needed to reload or even tuck away weapons can vary depending on which hand, and when you're in the midst of battle, it was very frustrating and stressful. You could argue that's good for this genre, but other VR games never had this issue for me (as of writing this blog post). 

As briefly mentioned earlier, there are human enemies in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which was not present at all in The Walking Dead Onslaught. 

A part of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners' trailer showcased this new enemy dynamic, and I was so thrilled and enthusiastic about the idea of fighting human enemies and, in some instances, fight alongside human AI in VR!

The graphics and audio in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners was never an issue, despite the very apparent graphical limitations of the base, PS4 system. 

I never had any crashes, and this was great when tasked with more, required, PSVR motion controls.  

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners has additional PSVR motion control features for you to use inside the drastic, horrific locations. 

You, of course, have the basic motion controls like opening doors at any speed with the doorknobs, or holding Walker heads in place to kill, but The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners also requires you to climb and do parkour like maneuvers!

Grabbing poles, walls, windows, or even dumpsters to climb up on was so thrilling in VR and opens up a new, wide variety of strategic killing techniques, resulting in longer longevity. 

Other motion control gameplay features include rubbing Walker guts on yourself to blend in, combining tech parts, reloading magazines into weapons, drawing back bows / arrows, etc. 

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is an amazing, crucial PSVR title to experience. 

The story is great (despite the lackluster ending), the gameplay features are outstanding and incredibly immersive, and the whole atmosphere / ambience in general, matches The Walking Dead perfectly!

Pros: 

    - Very Immersive

    - Additional / Interesting Motion Control, Gameplay Features

    - Good Voice Acting (and Fully Voiced Protagonist)

    - Smooth VR Controls / Gameplay

    - Fixed, Two-Handed Weapon VR Gameplay (at least for me)

    - Longevity

    - Collectibles

    - Human AI Allies and / or Enemies

    - Satisfying Killing Gameplay (Walkers, Using Guns / Melee Weapons, etc.)

Cons:

    - Long Load Times

    - Lackluster Story / Game Ending(s)

    - Hard to Remember / Get a Hold of Controls

    - No Dialogue Skipping Option (as of writing this blog post)

My Rating for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (on PSVR):

4 / 5

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Disclaimer

All Reviews, Ratings, Pros, Cons, and Opinions Shared on this Blog (Press A Reviews) are my (Connor Butler) own Thoughts and Feelings.