Overkill’s The Walking Dead delayed indefinitely on PS4 and Xbox One

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of Overkill’s The Walking Dead, which were due to launch next month, have been postponed indefinitely instead.

Starbreeze Studios, which owns Overkill Software, made the announcement on Friday in a two-sentence news release for investors. “Starbreeze AB is currently evaluating and reviewing the performance of the game Overkill’s The Walking Dead on consoles,” it said. No other reasons or details were given.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead has been written about since August 2014, well past peak interest in either the AMC series or the zombie genre at large.

When the game’s development was formally announced, it was originally given a launch window for 2016. At one point, Overkill’s The Walking Dead also had a virtual reality version in development.

It was delayed by a year in January 2016. It was delayed by a year in 2017. During the PC Gaming Show at E3 2018 it was given a November launch date for all platforms. Its Xbox One and PS4 versions were delayed by six months in August. The game’s PC version launched on Steam in November. It wasn’t any good.

We panned it for the difficulty spikes, lack of checkpoints, lack of voice chat and dependence on cooperation that combined to make it feel “like wasted effort,” “too frustrating to play right now,” and “just not any fun.” The game has 753 concurrent players on Steam right now.

In December, Stockholm-based Starbreeze Studios filed for the Swedish equivalent of bankruptcy protection and fired its chief executive, following a November in which it reported “disappointing” sales for Overkill’s The Walking Dead. Starbreeze is said to have paid a $10 million licensing fee for the console versions.