Skybound Cancels Overkill's The Walking Dead Game For Failing To Meet Standards

TheGamer

By Lou Flavius

Published Feb 27, 2019

Overkill's The Walking Dead has been canceled by Skybound Entertainment and will be removed from Steam in the near future.

Overkill's The Walking Dead has been canceled by Skybound Entertainment.

Skybound, which owns the rights to The Walking Dead franchise, has announced that it has terminated its contract with Starbreeze Studios and that all work on Overkill's The Walking Dead will come to an immediate halt.

The game was designed to grow over time via regular content episodes, but it was hardly impressive following a launch on PC last year. Starbreeze reported that it would take up a cost-cutting drive following the disappointing launch and the game's lower-than-expected sales, ultimately firing CEO Bo Andersson, with reports claiming that it was over $45 million in debt.

Last month, the developers confirmed that the game would be postponed and would not launch for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in February as previously promised. However, things became even wilder last week when Sony began issuing refunds to players who had pre-ordered the game through the PlayStation store, claiming that Overkill's The Walking Dead had been canceled by 505 games, the console publisher, which insisted that the game was still on its way to both PS4 and Xbox One.

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On Tuesday, though, Skybound confirmed that it had parted ways with Starbreeze and was shutting down further development of the title.

"As of today, we have terminated our contract with Starbreeze Studios and will discontinue all efforts on Overkill's The Walking Dead," it said in a statement. "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 resolved 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," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Starbreeze has said that the game will be removed from Steam in the near future, although it is still in discourse with Skybound to try to find a way to have season 2 released.

"We are deeply sorry for the issues this may cause anyone who has bought the game looking forward to the resolution of season 2 and are working urgently to attempt to resolve the issue," acting Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark stated. "Please keep an eye on the official OTWD channels for further news."