Overkill's the Walking Dead Now Canceled for Consoles

By Jonathon Dornbush

While a week ago it seemed Overkill’s The Walking Dead was still set for release on PS4 and Xbox One, Skybound Entertainment, overseer of The Walking Dead license, has now announced the game will no longer be coming to consoles, and support for it on PC will be discontinued.

In a statement sent to IGN, Skybound confirmed it has ended its contract with Starbreeze Studios “and will discontinue all efforts on Overkill’s The Walking Dead.

The company’s full statement reads:

As of today, we have terminated our contract with Starbreeze Studios and will discontinue all efforts on OVERKILL’S THE WALKING DEAD. Our creators and their stories are the core of Skybound, and since 2014 we have worked hard to expand the world of The Walking Dead into an exceptional Co-op Action FPS. We did our best to work with Starbreeze and resolve many issues that we saw with the game, but ultimately OVERKILL’S THE WALKING DEAD did not meet our standards nor is it the quality that we were promised. We are exceedingly sorry to our fans and share their disappointment in the game. We remain dedicated to providing our fans with the most premium quality content we can offer, and will continue to look for alternative video game options for the IP.

As mentioned in their statement, Skybound is committed to finding new life for The Walking Dead in video game form, but it will not be via Overkill’s The Walking Dead, which released only for PC in November of 2018. As of press time, Overkill’s The Walking Dead had a peak concurrent player count on Steam of 307 players in the last 24 hours, with 117 concurrent players just before press time.

This announcement comes only about a week after console publisher for the game 505 Games announced the console version had simply been postponed, not canceled.

IGN’s original PC review of Overkill’s The Walking Dead called the game “an earnest attempt to deliver a cooperative adventure set in the iconic Walking Dead universe, but that effort feels a bit like it’s all too little too late.”

Overkill’s The Walking Dead’s development was announced for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. During E3 2018, a November release date was announced for the game, but that was ultimately only the PC version of the game. The console port was then pushed back to February 2019 before this latest cancellation.

Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s News Editor. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.