The Walking Dead: Destinies Review – Dead On Arrival

The Walking Dead is arguably one of the most iconic zombie franchises ever created. Developed by Skybound Entertainment and published by GameMill Entertainment, The Walking Dead: Destinies brings the post-apocalyptic world of the hit TV series to consoles and PC. As a third-person action-adventure title, it aims to capture the danger and drama of life among the undead.

Destinies drops players into the shoes of former sheriff Rick Grimes moments after he wakes from a coma to find the hospital abandoned and zombies swarming the halls. After fighting your way out, you discover the truth: while you were unconscious, a zombie epidemic has ravaged society. Now you must lead a ragtag group of survivors in a desperate search for answers, shelter, and most importantly, a cure.

The hook lies in difficult decisions that permanently alter events and lead to drastically different playthroughs. Will you remain faithful to the TV show or diverge onto shocking new paths? Sparing someone’s life or leaving them to die shapes your group and story in profound ways. It’s an intriguing concept for fans, offering the long-awaited chance to explore untold tales.

Expectations were high considering Destinies arrives during a resurgent wave of Walking Dead popularity. Between the TV series rebounding with its eleventh season and multiple successful games from Telltale Games, the franchise has never been hotter. Unfortunately, initial reviews indicate Destinies fails to reach the heights of its predecessors. Across the board, critics cite uninspired design, game-breaking bugs, and half-baked execution. Can you uncover a diamond in the rough or is this game better off dead? There’s only one way to find out!

A Rotten Visual Feast

One area where The Walking Dead normally delivers is graphic violence and gore. Unfortunately, while Destinies has disgusting zombies in droves, awful technical shortcomings sap them of any visual impact. This game defines the phrase “technically dysfunctional” between outrageously dated graphics, constant crashes, laughable bugs, and performance issues galore.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first: character and environment models look atrocious even by last-gen standards. Faces resemble melted plastic, textures glare with low-resolution ugliness, and backgrounds fuse mundane repetition with hideous lighting. Whether crawling through decaying cities or rural ghost towns, Destinies is homelier than a rotting pumpkin after Thanksgiving. Don’t expect Alexandrias lush landscapes here; only flat terrain textured like old sponges.

The fake-looking gore effects try compensating through sheer quantity, but models glitching through everything dispels the illusion instantly. A little polish could’ve redeemed things, yet even animations resemble a clumsy marionette show, with survivors wielding weapons like they learned combat yesterday. These deficiencies drag cutscenes down too since awkward posing only accentuates the ugly character renders. Lori and Carl seem traced from century-old police sketches while Rick channels Michael Douglas undergoing a violent allergic reaction.

Preparing for crashes became a gameplay mechanic itself as Destinies hemorrhaged stability. Buggy sequences, vanishing audio, game-breaking glitches that necessitate full restarts – we endured every technical headache imaginable. The furthest we pushed without a crash clocked under three hours. We also encountered laughable scripting failures like characters coming back to life after their death scenes or Quest NPCs getting stuck mid-mission. It all reeks of last-minute assembly from scraps on the butcher room floor.

The only silver lining hid beneath the problems: a smooth 60 FPS framerate during actual gameplay and fast load times following crashes. It’s the lone indicator that a decent game exists underneath all the janky nonsense. Given another delay to fix its teething issues or downscale the graphics for smoother performance, perhaps Destinies could’ve clawed itself to mediocrity. As stands though? This is a technical trainwreck better left avoiding until patches salvage the experience.

Clunky Mechanics That Feel Decades Old

Considering the wealth of great gameplay options available lately for fans of The Walking Dead, expectations for Destinies ran high. Whether stealth action like Telltale’s series or all-out chaos like the Saints & Sinners games, we’ve enjoyed quality zombie destruction from numerous angles recently. Unfortunately, Destinies brings none of that to the table. Behind the visual issues lies a dull, repetitive, glitchy slog that flounders in last decade rather than pushing the envelope.

On paper, the ingredients exist for an engrossing experience. Stealth and action blend together as you thin zombie ranks through quiet neck snaps or aggressive dismemberment with scattered weapons. Limited resources force smart improvising while herds quickly overwhelm the careless. You gather clues about what caused the outbreak while securing new safe havens alongside intriguing allies. It sets the stage for diverse, dramatic showdowns.

Reality obliterates expectations faster than a headshot. Right away, the clunky mechanics signal an uphill battle. Input lag makes movement and combat equally frustrating, while zombies freeze, glitch through walls, even ignore you outright thanks to incompetent coding. Stealth remains nearly impossible as they erratically appear everywhere without warning while finicky controls limit effectiveness. The only thing more annoying than zombies clipping everywhere are quests breaking thanks to the shoddy detection programming.

Gunplay offers no salvation either since squirrelly auto-aim will have you missing point-blank shots. Running backwards while firing works better for hitting targets which is simply embarrassing from a design perspective. At least ammo scavenging makes short work, though silly restrictions on carrying capacity will have you emptying guns before swaps.

Speaking of silly restrictions, we have the stamina system which is utterly atrocious. Every minor action from dodging to melee swings depletes your stamina meter with brutal speed, leaving you helpless for far too long as it slowly recharges. The adrenaline meter builds through kills to unlock powerful finishers yet that requires having stamina available to fight in the first place. It’s a frustrating catch-22 right out the gate.

If there’s innovation here, it eludes us entirely. All missions boil down to a predictable cycle: travel across an area while battling recycled zombies to unlock a door then fight a boss. Character skills, crafting, and side tasks give the illusion of depth but it all falls apart instantly in practice. The handful of guns and repetitive scavenging simply delays the inevitable boredom derived from mowing down the same mindless enemies in copy-paste environments.

Without serious patches, only masochists would call these controls responsive. Even simple actions like closing doors or grabbing items work half the time. The traversal mechanics constantly glitch out, combat lacks all impact, and interactions feel totally disconnected from the on-screen actions. Topping things off is a camera constantly struggling to keep up with the action and controls locking up entirely too frequently.

Maybe we expect too much innovation from licensed titles nowadays, but there’s no excuse for outdated design this severe. With smoother controls, smarter gameplay variety, and extensive bug removal, Destinies might’ve carved out a niche. As stands? This plays like a mediocre PS3 launch title, not a next-gen walker simulator. Let this one rot in the bargain bin until some desperate fools attempt dragging it back to life.

A Clumsy Retelling Lacking Heart or Brains

As a franchise, The Walking Dead sinks its teeth into fans by capturing the emotional toll of survival against hopeless odds. Between the shows, comics and games, we’ve loved and lost characters while exploring challenging moral dilemmas. Destinies pays lip service on paper to these beloved elements but stumbles like a walker with two left feet when delivering substance.

The narrative opens strongly, dropping players into Rick Grimes’ shoes shortly after he awakens from a coma into the zombie apocalypse. After reuniting with loved ones and struggling to find safety, Rick soon discovers Sanctuary: an ominous city run by the ruthless Governor. What follows is a series of dangerous supply runs, surprise attacks, and desperate last stands as you’re forced to make tough choices for the greater good.

While moments exist celebrating fan-favorite characters like Michonne and Darryl, inconsistencies plague the experience. Destinies struggles sticking to canon events or characterizations which breaks immersion constantly. Some scenes end abruptly while others happen off-screen entirely too often. We endured nonsensical survivor decisions and behaviors utterly ignoring common sense for the situation. Maybe we expect too much logical consistency in a zombie game, but the TV series usually avoids such plot pitfalls through smart writing.

The conversations and conflicts meant to drive tension frequently miss the mark as well. Stilted dialogue combined with awkward pauses and reactions makes exchanges more cringeworthy than compelling. Any attachment we built with this crew during early days vanished quickly once the plot holes widened. The emotional moments end up falling flat when you’ve got lifeless facial animations and inconsistent voice acting. At some point in the journey, Rick sounds much older while Carl goes through an awkward puberty phase randomly.

Without the story and characters as redeeming pillars, the rest collapses like a house of cards. Environments blur together with repetitive assets and textures creating a bland background to largely recycled content. The zombie models possess slightly more variety but that’s a low bar to clear. None exhibit anything near the grotesque mutations depicted in the comics which represents missed potential. Everything about Destinies reeks of missed potential the more it unfurls.

Ideas clearly existed to celebrate The Walking Dead universes rich lore. Individual story beats shine on occasion, especially when playing with established plot lines from the show. But characters and choices end up contradicting themselves while falling short of their grabbing pitches. Without the beating heart or brains that define the franchise, what remains stumbles about with no real substance to latch onto. Diehards could potentially forgive its dumb dialogue or inconsistent world. The utter lack ambition though? Now that bites harder than any walker could chew.

Illusion of Choice in a Linear World

The central hook of Destinies resides in difficult decisions permanently altering your journey at key moments. Will you spare enemies or leave them to die? Can someone be trusted or should they be exiled from the group? Promising diverging story paths and conclusions tempt Walking Dead fans eager for new twists. Unfortunately, while the choices prove entertaining, consequences rarely meet expectations.

Upon starting Destinies, players choose from several playable protagonists like Rick, Michonne or Darryl, with others unlocking through early choices. You’re immediately bestowed leadership duties, directing scavenging runs, settlement priorities, even morally gray judgments over prisoners. It’s empowering stuff early before limitations emerge.

See, conversational choices and resource assignments may open or lock specific missions down the road, but they don’t meaningfully impact things long term. The critical path continues unabated regardless as characters shift roles to ensure main story beats hit their marks. While certain faces fill different antagonistic shoes depending on past decisions, you’re still pushed along the same overall route. Where we sacrificed an ally to conserve medical supplies, the story somehow replaced the character a few scenes later as if nothing happened.

There are no customization or RPG mechanics at play either, outside unlocking basic combat abilities or stat boosts tied to characters. Everyone controls identically in gameplay with variations existing in name only. Weapons work the same too apart from varying speed, damage or ammo capacity. It’s always the same loop of bashing in walker skulls or stealth neck snaps offering zero build variety. Without these genre staples, replay appeal plummets fast.

And if you anticipate significant post-game content, temper expectations. Once the credits and final cutscene roll after that last linear boss encounter, all you’ve got left are some lackluster bonus challenges utilizing bland horde mode templates. No new game plus unlocks, no alternate ending incentivizes, not even collectibles worth tracking down in the barren overworlds; just dull cookie-cutter battles absent the narrative or characters providing the only entertainment this game offered.

We have to tip our hat regarding branching story concepts since player choice is rarely meaningless amidst apocalyptic chaos. Alas, everything ends up coming across as smoke and mirrors. Where tension should climb seeing long-reaching consequences unfold, an illusion quickly erodes revealing the strings holding this fading world upright. Destinies loosely masks its linearity rather than fully branching into the compelling saga it could’ve become given more development time for robust narrative reactiveness. What we’re left with are fleeting moments of promise punctuated by familiar franchise beats marching lockstep towards the finish line.

Moans and Groans (Mostly From Players)

With zombies come expectations of immersive audio from chilling moans to visceral feasting sound effects. Destinies meets the bare minimum in this department but phoned-in voice acting, repetitive combat chatter and a largely forgettable score undermine the experience. Moments of strong ambient mood-setting get drowned out by grating battle quips and glitches.

Starting with positives, the background audio shines brightest across the board. Haunting winds, creaking doors in abandoned buildings, and distant undead groans constantly put players on edge better than any jump scare could. As you navigate the desolate world, these subtle audio cues lend believability, enriching the post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

Unfortunately things fall apart whenever characters open their mouths. Voice acting quality fluctuates wildly, with some putting in earnest work while others sound wholly disinterested reading their scripts. Conversations often sound stilted as a result, hurting the natural flow. Adding insult to injury, dialogue jumps randomly for numerous survivors as they substitute actors. These immersion breaking bugs hit audio hard.

What sinks overall quality further is painfully repetitive combat barks replacing actual zombie noises far too often. Prepare for dozens of indistinguishable macho yells about adrenaline pumping as Destinies confuses itself with Gears of War. Diversity gets tossed straight out the window, diminishing the initially eerie mood once monotonous battle chatter takes over. Topping things off are entirely forgettable background melodies on loop failing to elicit reactions, good or bad.

Occasional strong points emerge like the intimidating pre-boss music or solid foley work on dismemberment kills. But they barely register over the barrage of bugs, inconsistent voicework, obnoxious survivor yelling and bland atmospheric tunes dripping any tension from the experience. Unfocused audio design manages squandering fantastic horror ambience to wallow in mediocrity across the board. Here’s hoping future patches remove annoying chatter allowing the undead themselves to shine through better with those chilling moans players desperately crave.

A Rotten Shell Of Missed Potential

Looking back now, The Walking Dead: Destinies reeked of trouble from the stained start. Rushing development to capitalize on current popularity, publishers shoved an undercooked idea through the door without care for quality. What we’re left with after hours suffering through is an ugly, boring, technically deficient mess undeserving of shelf space.

In theory, the premise showed promise, dropping players into a defining moment within Walking Dead lore where choices steered protagonists down unpredictable paths. Early demonstrations teased opportunities sparing enemies, sacrificing survivors or navigating morally gray dilemmas absent from the show. Making Rick spare Shane after their farm showdown or abandoning Clementine to raiders opened exciting story doors for fans.

Yet in practice, those touted branching paths led back to familiar ruts thanks to uninspired writing, sloppy plotting and careless continuity errors. Impossible resurrections, inexplicable character actions and laughable dialogue remind us no QA team ensured coherent through lines. By the midpoint, Destinies abandon all pretense delivering a tailor-made journey, rather revealing itself as another cash grab around fan nostalgia.

Which brings us to gameplay delivering the final gut punch. Dull mission templates, a punishing progression system, unlikeable roster and repetitive zombie slaughtering exposes a complete absence of passion behind the scenes. Everything reeks of obligatory design tropes half-implemented rather than celebrating iconic Walking Dead moments fans crave. What soulless product.

Comparisons to superior recent zombie titles like Last of Us or Days Gone reveal how far behind Destinies lags. Forget innovation, it brings absolutely nothing new to the genre while even failing basics like responsive controls, challenging enemy design or rewarding progression. 2005 called asking for its mediocre mechanics back.

Lasting appeal? Nonexistent. We cannot envision any player suffering through Destinies wooden campaign once let alone returning for more of the tacked-on challenge modes or pointless collectibles. Spending full AAA pricing on a game reminding us of PlayStation 2 launch window mistakes seems madness. Either wait until it inevitably hits bargain bins or better yet, avoid altogether and replay beloved Walking Dead stories instead.

Harsh words for sure, but not undeserving. Destinies will surely find an audience among forgiving fans blinded by devotion or those simply desperate for any zombie action they can find. For players valuing polished gameplay, stability and smart design, stay away until at least a No Man’s Sky level rebound repairs the astronomical deficiencies holding back this promising IP. Until then, pull the plug and move on. This dead franchise imitation wont be rising back up anytime soon.

Avoid Until Extensively Patched

If our final verdict isn’t clear yet, let’s summarize plainly: The Walking Dead: Destinies in its current state remains an outright failure delivering an interesting premise terribly. We cannot currently recommend this to anyone outside the most diehard franchise fans desperate for new content to consume.

Should extensive patching resolve the laundry list of technical and design flaws hampering things, our tune may change. Smoothing gameplay, enhancing enemy variety, adding genuine story reactivity and fleshing out the empty open worlds could elevate Destinies from disaster status. An injection of heart and brains would be welcomed too via better dialogue, richer character development and environmental storytelling for the woefully generic locations.

As much as we’d love seeing this world expanded, forthcoming DLC plans unfortunately seem doomed absent serious reworking. The current framework is simply too old, broken and devoid of compelling ideas to justify building atop anytime soon. Start fresh by overhauling core gameplay before expecting players to invest further.

Here’s the bottom line: if you’ve yet to bite on Destinies, hold off for now. Despite flashes of a great Walking Dead game hiding behind janky mechanics and technical dysfunction, this remains an omega-level zombie virus infecting your hard drive. Allow time for patches purging the worst offenses. Until then, celebrate Halloween by revisiting classics getting the undead horror formula right the first try. Our corpses deserve better than this.

Also Read:

Step into the Apocalypse: The Walking Dead: Destinies Game Launches Soon Tales of the Walking Dead: Watch the Trailer of the New Walking Dead Spin-off Walking Among The Dead Again: AMC Reveals Teaser for ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Walking in France: A Peek into Daryl Dixon’s Next Adventure in “The Walking Dead” Spin-off