Overkill's The Walking Dead

They made a solid game i think. But i saw a review that says that what they made is not working. They are using great systems but fail to use them properly. The AI is incredibly dumb and is the worst part about this. Also you spent most of the time with managing your location rather then experiencing great stories. I dont like zombie games... and this is to left4dead. But this could have gone a good way like this other series with the girl and the man.

Would be interested to know what was going on internally for this to be released in its condition. So much uncommon weirdness going on from well known names this year.

Quote from dux

10 hours ago, dux said: Would be interested to know what was going on internally for this to be released in its condition. So much uncommon weirdness going on from well known names this year.

Switching engines somewhere along the way, I would guess. Scrapped work and hundreds of people that needs training in the new tools.

"Starbreeze has announced it is making changes to its business in order to reduce costs -- but this will involve dismissing a quarter of its staff.

Of the 240 staff currently employed across the Starbreeze group, approximately 60 are expected to be effected with the layoffs to be complete by November."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-…ts-to-cut-costs

"Starbreeze applies for third extension on reconstruction period"

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-…truction-period

"In the wake of these events, Starbreeze's financial situation became dire, and by May 2019 the studio's own estimates were that it lacked sufficient funds to continue operating for the next year. During this period, the studio requested two separate three-month extensions to complete its corporate restructuring. Starbreeze divested itself of several studios and games. OtherSide Entertainment bought out the publication rights for their System Shock 3 in February 2019, while Mohawk Games reacquired publishing rights for 10 Crowns in April. In May 2019, Starbreeze sold its share of Dhruva Interactive to Rockstar Games for US$7.9 million. Starbreeze laid off about 60 positions, roughly 25% of it staff, as additional cost-saving measures in June 2019. The same month, Starbreeze sold the publishing rights for Psychonauts 2 to Microsoft for $8 million."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbreeze_Studios#Economic_problems_(2018–present)

Looks like Starbreeze are trying hard not to bite the dust, but can they do it? What are they gonna release to make some profit?

PAYDAY Crime War for mobile, Geminose for the switch? A super early access for PAYDAY 3? Looking at their schedule, which hasn't been updated in forever, those first two titles were ahead in production.

https://www.starbreeze.com/starbreeze-gam…lease-schedule/

Well, well, well, one month later and Starbreeze has split into two companies - New Starbreeze Publishing AB and New Starbreeze Studios AB. They also published their plans for upcoming years as well as their sales expectations. Oh boi.. so they're going hard on with Payday: Crime War for mobile and Payday 3

"In light of the ongoing reconstruction work, Starbreeze AB (publ) provides an estimate of the business’s future cash flows from operations. The company estimates that these cash flows will be positive, based on expected new publishing agreements in 2020 and an expected release of PAYDAY 3 in 2022–2023.

[Blocked Image: https://www.starbreeze.com/sbz-media/2019…799009450-1.jpg]

The cash flows in the graph above are based on the following expected events:

[*] Release of PAYDAY 3 estimated to take place in 2022–2023 [*] Publishing agreement for PAYDAY 3 concluded* during the first half of 2020 and an initial payment instalment is received, after which the continued development of the product is financed by the publishing partner [*] Publishing agreement for PAYDAY: Crime War concluded* during the first half of 2020 and an initial payment instalment is received, after which the continued development of the product is financed by the publishing partner" [/list] * In conjunction with the signing of these [/i]publishing agreements[/i], [/i]the possibility of payment to the creditors is created in the ongoing reconstruction work[/i]. The payment [/i]to the creditors is estimated to be able to amount to approximately SEK [/i]40 million.[/i]

https://www.starbreeze.com/2019/10/starbr…ure-cash-flows/

@Radu Good on them for trying to reassure everybody in a public way like this, but I gotta say their speculations look very optimistic to say the least...

Still, crossing fingers and I hope everything goes well for them, including that mobile game they got going!!

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Wow, very cool overkill, re-textured the default enemies for the 5th time and use the exact same face for every new Mexican civilian and guard. Very cool how every character still has arms that are 3 inches too short and no facial animations. Very cool how the story that was crapped out in 5 months and was completely wrapped up, now has a new plotline. Even though im pretty sure a bland cartel focused story line is not that interesting after the main plot just finished with an Aztec temple buried beneath the White House granting immortality to Bain after you broke him out of the biggest, baddest prison ever with little to no effort.

Also real killer map design with flat terrain, the most generic looking Mexican city ever seen in a video game and assets reused from Big bank, a map they made in 2010 with asset quality typical of 2008. How are people still buying the DLC for this game? Are they really that desperate to see a rushed Payday 3 being produced by a company on a slow spiral of decay? I remember when people were coming in droves to shit on Overkill for making "sub-par" heists like Alesso and Car Shop (which are no were near as poor as these last few). Yet we now see some vocal majority coming out of the word work to praise overkill for another con-job.

What's the issue? If people enjoy what they put out, so be it. I'm not a huge fan of Payday, but I played it myself a bit back in the day. Obviously the engine and most assets are dated by this point, but the map look alright. The atmosphere is spot on though.

As much as I'm not a fan of micro paid DLC content, I hope they manage to release Payday 3 and get out of this terrible financial situation.

Lol, some companies just do everything they can to go under.