The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners 2 continues to raise the VR bar
February 21, 2023When it hit in 2020, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners delivered a bracing virtual reality survival horror game tied to the beloved Robert Kirkman comic book series.
The first-person shooter featured a crafting system, the ability to scale buildings, and endless ways of dispatching the walking dead. IGN wrote that The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners was a nuanced, noteworthy step forward for VR gaming, “proving that a Deus Ex-like Action-RPG can feel right at home in a headset.” And in its review, Destructoid said the game “cemented itself as one of the leading ‘full’ VR experiences to date.”
About three years later, developer Skydance Interactive returned players to The Walking Dead universe in a sequel that takes place three months after the events of the original. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution hit Meta Quest and Pico 4 in December 2022 and arrives on the PlayStation VR and PlayStation®VR2 this coming March, It drops players into New Orleans’ French Quarter in a game with an overhauled damage system, new night mode, deeper story interaction, and more.
We chatted with Skydance Interactive Chief Technologist Peter Akemann about the studio’s work on virtual reality games, the lessons it learned from The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners, and how they were applied to its sequel. Akemann also explained how Unreal Engine helped the studio master its virtual reality skills and walked us through how it developed some of the big changes that came to the game including the ability to legitimately hide in the darkness or be exposed to enemies in the light.
To read the rest of this story, which first ran on Feb. 21, 2023, visit Unreal Engine.
