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The Midnight Walkers is an amalgamation of some unexpected influences. The hardcore survival and extraction elements of Escape From Tarkov. The character-based zombie slaying of Dead Island 2. The backdrop of a messed-up, Squid Game-style entertainment show. It’s an odd mix, on paper, but one that combines a lot better than you’d expect. At Gamescom, I got to play around half an hour of The Midnight Walkers, and while I couldn’t get a full taste of its competitive, extraction-driven gameplay loop, I did see some early signs of promise from what is already an incredibly atmospheric zombie game.
Set inside the Liberty Grand Centre – a tower block with over a dozen floors all connected with stairwells and elevators – The Midnight Walkers ditches a sprawling open world in favor of something more compact and vertical. A group of crooked elites in this post-outbreak world has assembled a survival gauntlet that throws several teams into the loot-filled, zombie-packed building. The goal is to grab as much loot as you can and reach an extraction pod without dying – if you perish inside the Liberty Grand, you can wave goodbye to whatever you had on you at the time. It’s an intriguing concept for fans of the best zombie games and extraction games alike.
While I couldn’t experience any of The Midnight Walkers’ chaotic multiplayer elements (my Gamescom demo was a solo, PvE-only affair), I did get properly swept up in its atmosphere. From the parking lot at the base of the tower, through to the hospital, casino, and TV studio levels, the sick Squid Game wannabes behind the Liberty Grand have, admittedly, done a decent job creating challenging and dark levels that avoid feeling repetitive and samey.
Picture the scene: the elevator pings, and the doors slide open, revealing what would’ve once been your average corporate office space, but now it’s been devastated by the undead (and past contestants, no doubt). Zombies pop up from behind overturned desks, swipe at your feet as they crawl through vents, and crash through ceiling tiles. Playing as the character Lockdown, I’m equipped with a lethal composite bow, but for every enemy I take out with a well-placed arrow, it feels like another three or four emerge. It’s not overwhelming, but it’s certainly intense. I was a tad disappointed with the variety of zombies, both from a visual and gameplay perspective, but given this is still an early version of the game, I expect that there’s more work to be done in that department. The environments, however, are a different story – the levels I got to explore were all super eerie, excelled at mixing open spaces with tighter choke points, and were packed with grisly details.
I grab as many high-value items as I can, Tetris-ing them into my Tarkov-style inventory, before the inevitable happens. A warning message and timer appear on screen, telling me this floor will soon be off limits as toxic gas is pumped in. This is how The Midnight Walkers keeps contestants moving and squeezes teams into moments of conflict. It’s not some repetitive, predictable ‘closing of the storm’ that you see in a lot of extraction and battle royale games – floors are chosen randomly at intervals throughout a match, so you never know whether you’ll be forced up or down, to unexplored floors, or ones you’ve already ransacked. Elevators and stairwells allow you to move between levels and are safe spaces from the gas, so you can bypass toxic floors if you need to. Note that they might not be safe spaces from enemy teams lying in ambush, though.
The extraction mechanic sees you locate escape pods using a scanner, which will start to beep and guide you in the right direction when you’re within a few metres of one. These will take several seconds to unlock, and the one room I found with a pod in it was extremely crowded with zombies – so much so that I was clobbered before I could even start the unlocking process. So, expect some hectic situations from both the zombs and other players when you’re waiting to make your escape.
In terms of combat, The Midnight Walkers is going for a hero-style approach, with a selection of characters that come with unique loadouts. As mentioned, Lockdown is the ranged option, with his bow providing effective damage if you’re precise. However, he did feel a bit clunky and one-note – since my Gamescom demo, though, a rework of this class has been announced. I also got a few minutes with Brick, who wields a massive sledgehammer. Swinging this melee weapon around definitely felt more satisfying, and it really highlighted the game’s impressive flesh damage and dismemberment, but I once again wouldn’t call it sophisticated or smooth.
I think the overall loop here is a great one. I initially thought pod scanners and gas-immune stairwells would make navigating the game a bit too easy, but of course I was experiencing this without any other players out to kill me. Combat certainly needs some work, and some more variation in terms of enemies wouldn’t go amiss, but I’m very keen to experience The Midnight Walkers again, with a squad, and with some PvP moments too. The Liberty Grand makes for an intense and immersive location for post-apocalyptic entertainment, so let’s hope the action ends up being as excellent as the arena.
