September was a lot; Onimusha, Control Resonant, Dawnwalker and they’ve all been fucking brilliant, every single one demanding something from me and all of them the kind of games I feel like I am going to be talking about for ages. By the time I managed to actually sit and play The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival, I was so ready for something that just wanted me to have a nice time without making me think too hard about it.
Streets of Survival is a 16-bit side scrolling brawler (think Streets of Rage, Terrifier, Double Dragon) set in the Walking Dead universe and picks up just after Carl’s death in the show, which interestingly is about where I stopped bothering to watch the show as well… as the show had drifted so far from the comics, some of my favourite books ever written, that I eventually stopped trying to keep up with it. So I came into this with some reservations about whether the post-Carl setting was going to bother me or not
Ironically it didn’t really bother me all that much, Streets of Survival is very clear about what it actually is, It knows exactly why you’re here and gets on with giving you that thing as efficiently as possible. Recognisable locations, familiar characters rendered in chunky pixel art,and zombies, lots and lots of zombies to smash up.
I had a couple of whiskies and away we went.
Now, the combat is a simple button mashing affair and I wanted to talk about that upfront because I know it will be a dealbreaker for many of you. There is not a huge amount of depth here; You walk forward, hit the button and then watch zombies die. If you like this sort of simple title then the game is immensely satisfying
The 16-bit presentation is nostalgic and lovely, there is a clear love for the source matieral in the way that locations and character have been recreated in this style and remain recognisable – this could have very easily been a cheap cash in where they make Rick and Daryl look like themselves and then forsake everything else – but this clearly isnt that.
The game does its job without overstaying its welcome which is obviously the right call this year, It throws enough familiar faces and locations at you to feel like a Walking Dead game without stopping to make you sit through something that would be better served by watching the show. It knows you are here to hit zombies, and it respects that completely.
The one thing that genuinely pissed me off though, is the absence of a two-player mode. A 16-bit side-scrolling brawler with no co-op in 2026 feels like a huge missed opportunity. Streets of Rage 4 built so much of its identity around that couch co-op energy. Even that awful Terrifier game had two-player support – so why isnt it here?
Streets of Survival is crying out for someone to sit next to you on the sofa with their own whisky and their own button to mash. The bones of a brilliant co-op experience are absolutley here, the fact that nobody at Odaclick pulled that trigger is baffling. A future update adding it would immediately make this a better game, so sort it the fuck out.
But look. In a month where I played three genuine masterpieces that demanded my full attention and rewarded it with enormous emotional and mechanical depth, Streets of Survival was exactly the palate cleanser I needed. Not everything has to be art. Sometimes you want to walk through a 16-bit zombie apocalypse with a drink in your hand and your brain switched off.
For what it is, it is brilliant.