The Walking Dead Onslaught ‘Combat Rebalance Patch’ is exactly what players and critics alike have been asking for since the game launched a few weeks ago. While the game looks great on a powerful PC or a PS4, many players cited the gameplay as a source of disappointment. Following the release of this much-anticipated VR-exclusive zombie-killing action title, developers Survios faced a wave of criticism regarding the game’s designs, ranging from the overpowered starting knife to the small number of zombies present on screen.
True to its pedigree, Survios has now released a patch that significantly overhauls the combat and progression systems, as well as walker behavior and difficulty, helping them to fall more in line with player expectations. This free update is now available for all platforms the game is available on, including Oculus, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR. If you already own the game, head on over to your platform of choice and hit that update button. You’ll likely enjoy what you see.
To lightly sum up the changes, Survios has made it so that ranged weapons are a lot more desirable to use. That includes adding one-shot kills for close-range brain shots, less damage when shooting below the brain, and even fall-off damage over distance that can be improved with weapon upgrades throughout the game. Pistol whipping in the game now deals a lot more damage, and heavier guns actually feel like heavy guns thanks to a physics overhaul for two-handed weapons.
Melee weapons now all behave more like you would expect, including blades sticking to the inside of a walker’s skull, resisting removal, and no longer instantly releasing when a walker dies. Player movement is now restricted when a weapon is impaled in a walker, making attacking far more realistic, and the starting knife has been brought down to a more realistic level of power, as well.
Walkers are now more difficult to kill, are generally more aggressive, and deal more damage when biting. Higher difficulty levels have been tweaked, the number of walkers has been increased, and spiked and armored walkers are now much harder to kill. There are even tweaks for left-handed players, as movement and turning controller functions can be easily swapped in the settings, and Valve Index players will also find that gripping in the game behaves as they would expect. If you want to see all the changes, head on over to the official Survios blog.
