GameMill Entertainment is a publisher that rose to notoriety last month with Skull Island: Rise of Kong, an abysmal offering so bad it beggared belief. The Walking Dead: Destinies, which GameMill quietly released last week, plumbs new depths, an impressive achievement in its own right.
IGN rounded up a couple of examples doing the rounds on X/Twitter, which show cutscenes and gameplay so stilted they command your attention. The voice acting, bizarrely, is passable at times, but Destinies' style of stop-motion cinematics appears just to be stitched together static images. Did we mention this thing retails for nearly full price, around USD $50, or £39.99 on PSN?

In a year that saw the release of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, developed reportedly under duress at Daedelic Entertainment, it's impressive that GameMill could put out two similarly bad games. At this point, we think Geoff Keighley could probably scrape together an exciting new category for The Game Awards, one we'd watch with bated breath.
What do you think of The Walking Dead: Destinies? How does it compare to The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Skull Island: Rise of Kong? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 47
So im guessing the people who own the Walking Dead didnt ask to look at this before release XD
Im guessing that like Kong this was done in a year. This is just unacceptable. Unacceptable to the people who made the games as they must be in one hell of bad environment. Unacceptable to the public who they are trying to sell this trash to. Unacceptable by law surely as an unfinished product.
One truly bad game in a year isnt uncommon but 3 licensed failures that were all incomplete (not to mention the apologies from devs for poor release states) surely warrents some sort of ruling. Then again we couldn't stop Activision and loot boxes so what do i know lol
First zombie game to be made by zombies?
@Danloaded This…was…perfect. Nothing more to add. Perfect.
Man they made Rick's head massive here lmao
The race for the best bad game award is going to be exciting this year.
Geez I left the show behind when Rick left. I'm walking dead'd out lol I'm over it just depressing now lol
So disappointed. Outside of Telltale, no one has done a decent Walking Dead game. CD Projeckt Red… where you at?
They can’t even get the name of the game right in the credits lol
https://i.ibb.co/4PnhcPD/IMG-1371.jpg
I’m sure we’ll find some people who actually really enjoyed it and think we’re nitpicking.
sweet baby jesus....im lost for words lol
Typical internet overreaction. They obviously have a tiny budget. They can't afford to make cut scenes, so they chose static images. It's not the first video game that does it and likely won't be the last. But it's kwel to laugh at popular franchises, I guess.
Essentially, critics are forcing every developer with a small budget to make an 8/16bit game with no voice acting, cutscenes, etc, because those always get a free pass. Apparently ps3/ps2 graphics are unacceptable, but NES graphics are fine.
For the record, I'm not buying it, but I do find the criticism rather extreme.
True to their name, GameMill keep churning these out without a thought.
@naruball Agreed. Pixel art games always get a pass and people actually praise the basic nature of the storytelling.
Bayonetta had similarly static cut scenes to this and no-one lost their minds because of that! And I'm fairly sure that people speak fondly of Deadly Premonition for its jank.
But, also, I'm not saying this will be good.
@naruball not even on the same planet. This is pure trash
There is a typo in the article type, you meant "Best"
Game Mill must have put like 98% of their development budget into Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 and left the remaining 2% to be fought over by their other projects that have come out this year.
2023 are the best video game year. Period
This is a game so bad it's actually good, would buy on steep sale
First avatar, then king kong, now walking deas. Is Nick All Star Brawl 2 the pnly good game they have?
This game deserves to be reviewed!
Do people still watch this ?
@naruball the game is good, i think it's hilarious I would definitely buy it on sale of course but it's so bad it is good and I'm not mad at the devs I understand they most certainly had nothing for a budget, this falls on amc and the publisher most likely for being cheap. Somehow the devs managed to get Lori and Tdogs actors to voice their characters and they got Carl's actor but curiously had him voice a random npc guard instead of Carl himself.
My favourite bit is the Norman Reedus render in the background of the cutscene 😁😁😁
Aren't licensed games fun for all and definitely not verging on the side of being a complete scam, oh no no.
@Sequel The Saints and Sinners games are brilliant if you like/can tolerate VR. Two of my favourite games on PSVR2.
@Boucho11 it likely will be terrible. But not because of static images or its graphics.
@naruball yes you’re probably right
The only positive is the “What if?” Storyline. Oh and shooting someone in the face 20 times with a shotgun, to no effect.
This shows you why developers need time. An extra two years or more would have made this and Rise of Kong go from poop to probably passable but greedy publishers trying to fulfill contracts or take advantage of expiring licences led us here.
As for Gollum, any amount of time could not help them, that game had over 4 years of development
@naruball Graphics aside, this game has 0 charm and the gameplay looks abysmal. It's probably riddled with bugs as well. It deserves to get ***** on cause that's what it is. The only redeeming factor it has, is it's so hilariously bad it's actually funny.
i’m still buying it lol
Kong still looks worse.
Good lord for such an amazing year of games there sure are some incredible duds to go along with it
The walking dead Ventriloquist's.
Moves & looks like The Warriors ps2 game.
@Amusei then it can be criticized for its gameplay and lack of charm, not static images, as X users are doing. Even here some people are complaining about the graphics even though we hardly ever see such comments when games that come out in 2023 look like they were made for the NES.
My point is that small budget games should be allowed to be made without mockery as long as the gameplay (or if they're like Telltale games the story) is good.
This game even has spelling mistakes in its text as you play. "Slippled" is one example. The graphics are genuinely ps2/3 era, the ai is dumb when you come across humans, the constant one liners are awful. The game also carries little to no challenge. Oh and ends at around 5 hours, £40 for 5 hours of misery. No thanks
Will it sell decent because people are curious about how bad it is? Plus TWD name?
I hate that people will still spend money on this for the memes and lols. Game Mill needs to be vanished.
They would’ve been better off remastering the Daryl game from the PS3/360 era. Or do a State of Decay 2 type game with a Walking Dead skin on it.
@naruball Most of the time when a developer makes a game that looks like a NES game it’s done by choice. I doubt the developer here was like “you know what, let’s make our game look like a PS3 game”. Also I’ve played this game and the gameplay is terrible and it’s a buggy mess. Some trophies don’t work, making the plat unobtainable and they even only released half the game on Friday, making the game unplayable about halfway through and had to put out a 30 GB update on Saturday containing the rest of the game, so yeah, as long as they want people’s hard earned money for this then the whole package deserves to be mocked.
@itsfoz It is PROJEKT (pronounced: proyect. O in "pro": pronounced like "oo" in blood)
@naruball Come on this looks like a crime to release. This is not a budget issue this is just bad they are even known for asset flips.
The Gamemill is known for their garbage releases. I have seen smaller teams do way better. They just license a IP and shoehorn a horrible game in there and hope people buy it because of the name.
Also the the acting is a joke, the graphics are horrible just like the technical state of the game. Plus it looks like the have done number 2 in pants when they are stealthy. 😂🤣
@Flaming_Kaiser I don't disagree with any of what you said. At all. But the criticism on twitter was mainly about static images.
I find Kong much worse because they don't respect the source material at all.
@naruball Its a pity these IPs release that are this terrible. But in the end we can all wait for reviews and skip the biggest messed around.
@Flaming_Kaiser I do wonder why they're made though, in this time and age. Maybe 30 years ago, when we didn't know any better, they could make a quick buck, but not anymore. I simply don't get it.
@Bentleyma static images are certainly done by choice. The same choice people who create indie games make. When you have a tiny budget, you adjust accordingly. The criticism over the gameplay not being good is absolutely fair, though.
Also, the issues that you just mentioned have nothing to do with static images, i.e. what twitter users were making fun of it for. My point was specifically about those tweets.
@naruball I think its to scam the moms and dads or the grandparents. I can't think of another group so uniformed they see well known name and they buy it thinking they did it right can blame them though.
Judging by videos on YouTube this makes Gollum look like a masterpiece. Developers don't intentionally release an awful game but for the asking price this appears unacceptable. The graphics, gameplay, sound, glitches, bugs, outdated levels are all of the lowest quality. Would choose Gollum over this, a waste of a decent license and something that shouldn't reach stores in 2023.
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