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VR is definitely one of the most amazing achievements in gaming history, but one thing plagued it at its start. There were no killer apps. There was not one game that you could point to and go, “that’s the game you have to get VR for.” It languished this way for way too long, and it really wasn’t until the release of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners that things really took another step in VR. Not only did we get an officially licensed game, but we got a game that had elite VR physics, terrifying moments, great graphics, an engaging story with multiple paths, and multiple ways to play. In short, we got a full-fledged game for what felt like the first time.
My experience in VR is pretty vast as I’ve been a user of it since its very inception to the public. While I didn’t really believe there would ever be a VR game worth playing in my lifetime, considering what I tried in 2012 with the initial Oculus prototype, it is now a part of my daily routine. I can’t get enough of it. I’ve played several genres and tons of games. Honestly, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is as much of a quality title as you can find on this platform.
We’re going to explore everything there is to know about The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. Hopefully, it’ll help you navigate this terrifying world with more confidence than before.
Bottom Line Up Front
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is one of the most complex and challenging VR games out there. It combines terrifying survival horror with the ability to fight back using a ton of different weapons, and everything from your escape route planning to your pre-mission preparation will affect whether you get out of Walker-infested New Orleans alive.
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Overview
One thing you need to know right off the bat is that this is not going to be an easy game. Out of all the games I’ve played in VR, this one provides some of the most challenging scenarios and some of the most terrifying. To survive in this world, you have to be wary of your resources and smart about inventory management, time management, and awareness of your surroundings.
The Hub
Although most of the world in Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners will be trying to kill you, you will have moments of respite that take place in the world’s most comfortable school bus, which happens to also be your base of operations.
Here, you will craft weapons and ammo, formulate your load-outs for the upcoming missions, and even catch some shuteye to make the day-night cycle pass. While the actual bus is a safe place, the surrounding areas are filled with roaming walkers. You’ll need to be wary of dark corners and unsuspecting corpses when walking around here looking for the path to the next mission.
The missions are found in various spots throughout the hub area. Still, most of them will be found through the boat you will find by the docks near the cemetery gates.
Exploring the World
Once you get into the actual missions, you will be given objectives of multiple varieties to complete. All of them can be completed at your discretion. You will have a pseudo open world to explore within each of these missions, as all the environments are seamless. That means you can go from roaming in the outside world to exploring decrepit mansions without any loading screens. Although there is one separating the beginning of each mission, that’s the only loading screen you’ll see here outside of when you die in the game.
Day System
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is built on a system involving the number of days that have passed. As each day passes, you will get a notification that the dead have grown in number and that your supplies have dwindled. This will be a chilling thing to see as it’s not just an arbitrary notification but one that tells you that your game has increased the number of Walkers you will encounter and lowered the number of supplies you can find.
You will gradually see more and more Walkers as the days continue to pass. Each day that passes, the game will remove 2 items at a time until you get to the 50th day, where it will no longer remove anything. On the other hand, Walkers have a different system, and its governed by what kind of Walkers will appear.
Each set of 5 days will show you a different variety of Walker placements and types. The Walkers will see less of their base types and more of their more dangerous varieties as the days pass.
Saving the Game
Saving is pretty obscure in Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, like the way you do this, is by drinking from your flask on the bus. Once you do this, the day will change, so make sure you’ve picked up everything you’ve wanted to find that day, as items and Walkers will likely be shifted around when you return to that area.
While the base function of the flask is saving your game, you can also use it as a way to raise the difficulty of the game. If you choose to skip tons of days using the flask, you will find yourself in a much tougher game due to the increasing number of dangerous enemies you will see. Keep in mind that there is no going back if you decide to go with this strategy. Once the supplies dwindle and the dead grow in number, you cannot reset the state of the world.
Combat
While it’s not always needed or encouraged, you will be fighting a lot in Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. Your options for combat here are pretty numerous, and most of the time, anything you can find can pretty much be used as a weapon. Things like bricks, beer bottles, and pipes can be used as an effective weapon against the Walkers. Sometimes, this is all you’ll have available to you during a particularly tense moment in the game.
Combat is governed by a stamina system, and each swing you take in the real world will lower your stamina in-game. This can get quite annoying, but it’s understandable why it’s there. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to simulate what swinging a 20-pound ax would feel like otherwise. This means you have to attack strategically, not with wild, uncontrolled swings. A lot of the time, the best method is to avoid combat completely.
If you need to take on a Walker, you can grab them by the head and disable their ability to bite you while you line up a one-hit kill with any stabbing weapon. You can also grab human enemies as well, though they will make more noise when you do and generally alert their cohorts.
You can also choose to take on enemies from stealth as well, and sometimes a quiet takedown of a Walker is a better idea than alerting the whole group of them. The same can be said for human enemies. When you acquire a bow, you can take out enemies of all varieties silently and retrieve your arrows after it as well.
Physics System
A powerful physics system is at play in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. This not only covers you but your enemies as well. For example, you might find yourself without a weapon facing down a large group of Walkers many times. If this happens and they are charging you, you can literally shove them off of you to buy yourself some time. You can also throw weapons and various objects using simulated force. This can be enough to buy you the time you need to escape.
In addition to combat physics, you also have climbing physics as well. You will find pipes alongside many of the houses in the game that will provide you an alternate method of entry into them. This is not just for exploration, though, as you can use the climbing system to escape any enemy in the game. Walkers, for example, are unable to climb, so if you can find a car or dumpster to climb onto, you will be safe.
Weapon Durability
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners put a lot of emphasis on realism. With that comes the dreaded weapon durability that seems to be in every survival game. Here, you need to manage the hits you’re dealing out to the Walkers, as too many will cause that trusty bat to break or that great knife to snap off.
Weapons like Shivs have incredible amounts of usefulness but will break after just a few strikes, so you need to measure whether or not the fight with your enemies will be worth losing a valuable item. Crafted weapons tend to last longer, and upgraded ones even more so. There is also a recipe to find in the game that can increase weapon durability as well.
Scavenging
This is a survival game, and with that in mind, you know that you’ll be needing resources of some kind. The majority of these will be found exploring during your missions. You’ll find countless areas with pantries, kitchens, bars, supermarkets, and more, and each of them will have a ton of stuff to grab. The tricky part here is figuring out what to take with you as this game is heavily realistic, and because of that, you can only fit so much into your backpack.
You’ll have to choose between that shiny new weapon to use or that ultra-important health item. Do you take the beer bottle that can be used as a distraction and a weapon, or do you take the valuable bullets of which the amount is always scarce? Figuring out this dilemma will be key to your survival in this scary world.
When it comes to figuring out what to take, you need to keep in mind what kind of things are going to be most useful to you in a zombie apocalypse. That empty gun may seem like it could be thrown away, but you can always find more bullets. You can also perform upgrades at your hub to different types of items. These upgrades require certain items to get, so that can very well go into the type of things you’re on the lookout for each mission.
Scrapping
Each of the items you get will have a certain amount of value as scrap. Weapons are included in this, and they can be broken down into valuable resources for upgrades. If you have duplicates of a certain item, you should almost always scrap one of them to get the resources. This can be trickier to figure out for breakable items, which fulfill a big purpose either as a weapon or as a distraction to your enemies.
Crafting and Upgrading
Once you bring all this scrap back to your trusty base, it’s time to figure out what to do. Luckily, all the miscellaneous things you thought would have little to no use are some of the most important tools you can have in the game.
You can craft a huge amount of stuff in the game, and resources like wood, metal, and gunpowder are some of the most valuable items you can find. Once you collect these items, they can be fashioned into ammo, weapons, healing items, etc. Finding the items is a task on its own, though, and you’ll have to learn through trial and error where to find the things you need for what you want to craft.
Once you make items, you also have the option to upgrade them. This can make decent items like the Baseball Bat become a nail-filled weapons capable of stabbing and being a blunt weapon. Some of the gear in the game can only be acquired through crafting and upgrading, so you’re encouraged to experiment as much as you can with this system.
Recipes and Ingredients
You can discover recipes during your travels in various places, and there are a ton to find throughout the game. Once you find the recipe, you can track the items needed to make it, so this will help you know what to look for while you’re out in the dangerous open world.
Time Limit
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners throw one hell of a twist into the mix in the form of a time limit. You won’t see this everywhere you go in the game, but you will have a set amount of time to complete each task for most of the main missions. That’s not to say the game will just end if you fail to do so; there’s a much more sinister consequence in store for you instead. When the time limit hits for each open exploration mission, the bell will ring in the town you’re in. When that happens, all of the walkers in the area will be alerted to your position, and you’ll find yourself swarmed in a matter of no time.
If you’re exploring indoors when this happens, they will start pouring in from the windows and entrances all over, so you’ll need to plan your exit strategy every time you enter a building. This is an amazing mechanic that both rewards and punishes risk-taking. Do you stay that extra five minutes to explore the upstairs area of an abandoned building or play it safe and escape with time to spare?
You can still escape from the area once the bell rings. Still, you need to be extremely good with your reflexes, aim, and pathfinding here. The walkers will clutter just about every exit path you can imagine, making the trek back to the boat incredibly tough to survive.
Enemies
Seeing as this is survival horror, there will be plenty of enemies for you to deal with while playing. Each enemy has several different subtypes that you’ll have to learn the behavior of.
Walkers
The iconic creatures of the Walking Dead universe, it was a given that the Walkers would appear in Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. What wasn’t a given was just how many interesting variations these enemies would have. In their base form in this game, the Walkers will consistently be wandering around the streets of New Orleans.
You might find them by themselves or in large groups. The Walkers will attack you if you enter their line of sight or make a loud noise to attract them to you. This allows you to create distractions by throwing bottles to attract them to another direction so you can sneak by easily. Walkers are the easiest enemies in the game to kill, but they can still kill you easily if they have numbers or you just don’t have anything to fight them off with. Generally, a shiv to the skull of the Walker will end them pretty fast. When the time limit hits, these are the majority of the enemies you’ll see swarming you before you can escape.
Elite Walker
These enemies are a bit tougher than the base form of the Walkers because they will use helmets to protect their heads. This means you won’t be able to pull off your usual easy kills on them and will have to rely on things like body shots and maybe even gunshots to get the job done. You can still knock them to the ground with a well-placed blunt weapon attack, though, so they shouldn’t be too tough to handle.
Plague Walker
These enemies are signified by a weird green substance that you can see surrounding their mouths. These enemies are particularly dangerous because if you kill them with a melee weapon, they will inflict sickness damage against you unless you’re out of the immediate range of the attack. Because of this, it’s best to distract these Walkers elsewhere or just use a gun to finish them off from a safe distance.
Gutbag Walker
These enemies are absolutely horrendous to look at and even grosser to fight against. The Gutbag Walker differentiates itself by showing a disgusting amount of damage to the stomach area. They are a little bit tougher than the base type of Walker. Still, the big difference here is that you can slice open the Gutbag to tear the torso open after you’ve killed it, which will drop the item Bowels. You can then physically rub this item on you to prevent other Walkers from noticing you. The effect of this item will be negated if you decide to run at any time.
Humans
You’re not just going to be dealing with the Walkers in Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, as there are plenty of human enemies, and you need to decide on how you’ll deal with them.
They will be equipped with a variety of different weapons like you are. They generally have a much larger line of sight than the Walkers, so you’re going to want to find cover any way you can when deciding to engage in a fight with other humans. Many of these scenarios can be avoided by picking the correct dialogue options, but others will be required fights. Most human enemies will go down with a few bullets or hits to the head or body with a bladed or blunt weapon. Still, some you come across will be tougher than others.
NPCS
Beggars
You will come across various Beggars in Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, and there are 4 different kinds. You will need to give the Beggars either food, medicine, or bandages depending on the type of Beggar. Your reward is almost always a Box of Stuff containing valuable materials for crafting. You have the option to kill the Beggars if you’d like, and this will net the Box of Stuff as well, but it is not necessary.
Quest Givers
You will find a ton of NPCs in the Walker-ridden New Orleans that you’re given to explore in the game. Some of them will be hostile towards you, but others will give outside quests that you can take on for various rewards. These side quests are generally tougher than the main story and usually reward you with something useful like a new weapon or a ton of resources.
You will usually only be able to perform either a main mission or a side mission each day, so choose wisely and make yourself sometime before the bells ring, and you have to get the hell out before the zombie horde consumes you.
Choices to Make
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners know it’s throwing you into a cruel world, and with that comes the need to make some tough choices on occasion. These are not just arbitrary choices that will affect whether or not you get an item, but rather story-changing choices that can lead to multiple enemies.
As far as the NPCs go, many of them are safe from harm as they are crucial to the overall plot, but others can be killed. Once an NPC is gone, they are gone for good, so make sure you weigh the consequences before you do it.
The two factions in the game are the Reclaimers and the Tower, and while you can kill both sides of their army, they will start to get hostile toward you the more you kill. This will lead to them hunting you at times and being more aggressive of an enemy to fight. Your decisions involving these groups will affect how they react to you as well.
You can unlock multiple endings depending on what you choose to do. Even a few choices at the end of the game will change the story’s ultimate outcome.
DLC
The DLC for The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is called Aftershocks, and it includes around 6 hours of completely new story content. You will have to beat the main game to access this content, but you will get brand new missions, plot, characters, and even enemies to face off against once you do. More DLC is still planned for the game.
Tips and Tricks
- Sometimes the best course of action in the game is to run. You will need those resources of yours to last a long time, and you don’t need to risk them taking out a lone walker.
- Plan your escape before you need one. Every time you enter a building, make sure you know where the windows and doors are if you need a quick exit.
- Craft as much equipment as possible. The stuff you craft will always be more durable than the stuff you find, and upgrading your equipment will lead to longer-lasting equipment and better damage.
- Use your bow often. Learning to aim with it is crucial as you can get tons of silent kills while losing no ammo in the process.
FAQ
Question: Is The Walking Dead Saints and Sinner Multiplayer?
Answer: Unfortunately, the game is currently single-player only. There are no plans to make it multiplayer in the future.
Question: How long is The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners?
Answer: People will have different playtimes with this game based on how many side missions and time they take exploring. All in all, you should get about 15-20 hours out of the game.
Question: Is The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Based on the Show?
Answer: The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is not based on the show or the comic. It’s a completely original story that uses the graphic inspiration of the graphic novel, but that’s really the only similarity it shares outside of some similar themes. In terms of the story it shares most in common with, that would be Telltales: The Walking Dead, as both of these games involve a lot of decisions and consequences.
Conclusion
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners manages to achieve the impossible by giving us a great game that’s based on a well-known licensed product in The Walking Dead. It’s going to be a tough experience and a scary one as well, but hopefully, this guide has helped you figure out how this crazy game world works.
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