The Walking Dead: March to War review - A shuffling corpse of a strategy game

With the number of games based on Robert Kirkham's The Walking Dead already out there, you'd think developers would have tapped the well of original ideas dry by now.

But there are still those out there trying to force it into any genre they can, which is why we now have the MMO-esque strategy title The Walking Dead: March to War.

It's a confusing, ugly, menu-heavy affair that will appeal to a very small crowd of players, but for the average Joe zombie fan, it's very difficult to recommend.

Shambling along

If you've ever played Game of War or its numerous spin-offs and mimics, then you'll know the setup for March to War pretty well already. You need to build up your own base, recruit units to take care of it while you're gone, and send your crew out to scavenge the wasteland for materials and battle both the undead and other players. The Walking Dead: March to War What it also picks up from its inspirations is a horrible attachment to tutorials and an objective system which focuses almost entirely on levelling up your base, to the degree that it rarely feels like you're accomplishing anything. Your first few hours with the game will be spent building certain structures, levelling them up, recruiting new members, and then repeating the whole thing again three or four times. There's a flimsy story to tie it all together – certain characters from the comics will appear to explain why you need to level up your broadcast tower again, for example – but for the most part it all feels very pointless. Death march

Break free of the tutorials and you'll find little else to do. You can send out your units to locations on the map, either to scavenge or battle, and then wait as they go about their task. There's no direct involvement in any of these activities. You simply wait as a timer trickles down, and a small green arrow tracks your party's progress to the location and back again in real-time. The Walking Dead: March to War


And while graphics aren't usually worth mentioning in this kind of strategy game, it has to be said that March to War is plain ugly.

It leans so heavily on its comic book inspiration that everything looks sketchy and muddy, including the UI, which can lead to some confusion as you're finding your way around the menus.

Still walking

For hardcore strategy fans, what I've described probably sounds like heaven, and March to War is certainly going to appeal to that specific player who loves digging around menus and scrapping between clans.

But if you're a Walking Dead fan trying to find a new way to experience the story, this won't be the game for you.

It holds your hand for so long that you don't feel like you're making any real progress, and if you finally shake yourself free, you may discover that there was no point doing so.

The Walking Dead: March to War review - A shuffling corpse of a strategy game

As unoriginal as its titular villains, March to War takes all the intrigue of The Walking Dead and hides it behind muddy graphics and too many menus
Score
Ric Cowley
Ric Cowley
Ric was somehow the Editor of Pocket Gamer, having started out as an intern in 2015. He hopes to take over the world the same way.