I imagine I needn't remind you all of the hilarious non-trailer debacle involving Activision and Terminal Reality's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. After all, it happened just a week ago. There was a whole thing with the footage looking really terrible, and then we found out the footage came from a demonstration of the game on IGN, but had been edited together by some mysterious "fan." Anyway, the moral of that story was that Survival Instinct really didn't look ready for prime time, regardless of who was doing the trailer editing. Art assets looked plasticky and cheap, screen tearing was everywhere, and the action seemed to shamble along at an utterly unremarkable pace. It looked more pre-alpha than pre-release.
Which makes today's news that The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct will release in late March for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Wii U somewhat...perplexing? I guess?
The dates do at least hew toward the end of the month (as if that were any comfort). North American players will be able to see just what the hell this thing even is on March 26th, while Europeans will make similarly chilling discoveries on March 29th.
As if in tacit acknowledgement that the Internet at large hated what it saw of the game in that bootleg video, Activision released a new trailer to go alongside the announcement, albeit one that features zero gameplay footage. Instead, game and television show stars Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker find themselves suddenly staring at a camera, tasked with making some off-the-cuff remarks about how excited they are about this game. The results are perhaps as one might predict.
Sigh. I'm going to have to review this, aren't I?
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