The Walking Dead is something of a phenomenon. Not only was it a wildly successful comic book, but it's managed to build a media empire that spawned from a very well-regarded show. The series is set to have a movie in the relatively near future, but today it seems to largely be moving into the realm of video games. With titles on virtually every platform that's available, it makes a great deal of sense that The Walking Dead would also have some kind of mobile presence.

Survivors is a game that draws more from the show than from the comics, but it still sets out to capture the spirit of a world that's been overrun by the living dead. With a unique spin on the Walking Dead universe, it's certainly a game that's quite different from the other Walking Dead experiences that are available. How well this works, though, depends both on what the player is looking to get out of this kind of experience as well as how well he or she tolerates the deviations from the core narrative that are necessary to create this kind of game.

Features and Benefits

The Walking Dead: Survivors is a strategy game that's very similar to other city-builder strategy games that are currently available across various app stores. This means that while the game certainly has all of the visual trappings of the show, most of its actual game play elements have relatively little to do with The Walking Dead. Instead, this is a game that features a relatively steady pace of city building and resource gathering, broken up by combat with both computerized foes and with human enemies. Players are also required to spend time exploring and working together in order to best position themselves to survive the onslaught of both the living and of the dead.

The biggest benefit of this game is that it can be an excellent way to waste time. Though the game has a fair number of timers, there's always something for you to do. Though you'll probably rarely spend more than a few minutes at a time playing, you will generally be able to accomplish at least one task every time you log into the game. For some, it's nice to have a quick and simple way to experience the universe of this property without having to set aside a larger chunk of their days to do so.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Features a number of familiar characters from the universe of The Walking Dead
• Plenty of different activities to do in the game
• Social features tend to work very well
• Doesn't require too much of a time commitment

Cons

• Time gating makes it very hard to progress in the game in a reasonable amount of time
• Microtransactions and subscription services seem necessary to succeed in the game past the earliest stages

Conclusion

The Walking Dead: Survivors is a solid game that runs afoul of some of the most obnoxious microtransactions policies that you'll see in a licensed game. While the idea of building up a community of survivors and fighting back against the undead is fun, the constant call to spend more money will turn off many players. If you're incredibly patient and you're willing to put up with constant calls to spend, though, you'll find an enjoyable game lurking underneath the advertisements.