More than three years after its initial release, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners remains one of my favorite VR games, alongside the likes of Half-Life: Alyx and Gran Turismo 7 VR. maintains its position. So when the long-awaited sequel, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution, was released as a Meta Quest 2 exclusive in December, it was a huge disappointment. It had a mix of bugs and performance issues that really made me wonder if it was even intended as a sequel in the first place, especially considering there was no proper PC VR version at the time. In addition to the re-release, we now have a PlayStation VR2 version that visually blows away everything from the original Quest 2 release. It’s still not quite as polished as Chapter 1, and its ideas are safer than we’d hoped for a full-blown sequel, but the increased action is far more tense compared to the horsepower that keeps it going.
Assuming you’ve never heard of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners or its sequel, it’s basically a VR role-playing game that uses a hodgepodge of survival horror elements to drive a branching story . This formula is usually good for adding tension to the action and exploration. My own playthrough of 2020’s breakout hit engaged me in complex factional politics between all looting and survival, but through my choices I was able to explore my own personal life in apocalyptic New Orleans. Chapter 2 seems to pretty much eliminate these sorts of choices throughout the 12 hour or so campaign and unfortunately leads me down the set path but is characterized by far more combat opportunities to make up for it. I am doing
Story aside, there’s nothing I love more about survival horror VR games than darkness. A horde of carnivorous monsters crept into view and could overwhelm me at any moment. So it’s nice to see the PlayStation VR2’s HDR OLED panel render dark scenes so accurately. Playing Chapter 2: Retribution on this headset is literally a night and day difference from playing on the Quest 2. True Black comes to life in Chapter 2’s biggest new addition to the original: Night Missions. Roaming the desolate Rampart High School at night was more annoying than spooky, but in PS VR2 it’s downright terrifying.
So much difference that I actually found myself enjoying the story of Chapter 2: Retribution, though I didn’t like the overly talkative Pawn Kings or the single-minded people you’re basically expected to team up with. There hasn’t been a character as lackluster as a group of rebels yet. The original worked really well because it blends in, but really, there’s not the same leeway here for Chapter 2’s subtleties. I found myself trapped in a linear sequence of events where I absolutely had to face retribution for acts I never would have even chosen to do, or really didn’t remember playing back. In 2020. That momentum can get jarring at times.
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Chapter 2’s hectic new weapons, such as chainsaws and sawed-off shotguns, are used during the aforementioned Night Missions, where the biggest payoffs for Retribution await. The loot is much better at night when I bravely seek it out, but the walkers are far more aggressive and unintentionally lead to a climactic showdown between me and the ravenous hordes. These fierce walker battles only got off to a promising start in Quest 2, but thanks to the PS5’s thicker guts, these skirmishes finally come to life in terrifying detail on PlayStation VR2. map. I had to sneak through, turn and dodge entire hordes of walkers, and I had to use all the tools in my arsenal wisely. The haptic feedback on the Sense controller mixed with his 3D audio on the Pulse headphones made the whole experience much more consistent with the PS VR2 than it was when I played with the Meta Quest 2 three months ago.
There isn’t much new content here, given that only a handful of the 12 zones are brand new. Mostly just wandering around the original world looking for loot and completing quests. But thanks to the performance boost, the human AI is just as vicious and tactical as the original, creating unexpected scenarios between myself, hostile humans, and loitering pedestrians. And the increased difficulty creates reasons to approach more nuanced situations. For example, I can focus fire on one of her humans and kill them so they can turn around. This allows you to divert your attention behind enemy lines by bridging the gap between yourself and the enemy. These dynamic situations are much more interesting than the forced setup with his ax-wielding secondary enemy, Gerrick.Spoiler alert: Walker guts. It’s always been Walker’s guts.
After a day of adventure, returning to your home camp with fresh loot is even more satisfying, and this time, even if you choose to decorate your residence with loose items, you won’t have to worry about breaking anything. No. You can level up your Crafting Station by collecting items and placing them in the Recycle Bin. This will leave you stronger and better equipped to return to the next day. And despite the addition of his two new crafting stations that introduce interesting new items like tree sap, gloves, laser sights, SMGs, etc., this loop remains largely unchanged from the original. That said, the story itself isn’t overly complicated, often sending me on fetch quests where I fight the same type of enemy over and over again. As things heat up between you and you, you spin those wheels.
Framerates are at least more consistent now, allowing the action to run smoothly at what appears to be 90hz without reprojection. Unfortunately, there are still a frustrating number of glitches, likely due to the aging of this game engine. To clarify: I ran into a few experience-ruining bugs on the PS VR2 that probably had nothing to do with the hardware itself, the two biggest offenders being the Quest 2 It was far worse than many of the problems I encountered when reviewing the version last year. About 5 hours into my PS VR2 playthrough, the quest completely stopped updating new progress, forcing me to completely discard my saves and start fresh. Then, during a new playthrough, a group of enemy humans shot me with cheapshots, encamped by a corpse, saw and shot me through walls and floorboards, and rendered them, preventing me from completing the quest. I got into a situation that I could not live without weapons.
