I Played The Midnight Walkers — Vertical PvPvE With Tarkov Tension and Dead Island Gore

Why The Midnight Walkers Stood Out at Gamescom

I went into The Midnight Walkers expecting another extraction retread, and came away thinking the tower is the star. This PvPvE zombie slasher pins its tension inside the Liberty Grand, a multi-floor death maze where elevator dings feel like jump scares and stairwells are lifelines. On paper it’s Escape From Tarkov meets Dead Island wrapped in a nasty, Squid Game-adjacent show. In practice, the vertical level design is doing real heavy lifting, even if the combat still needs a tuning pass (or three).

Key Takeaways

• Vertical, multi-floor map creates fresh extraction tension without relying on a shrinking circle.
• Atmosphere and environmental variety are strong; enemy variety and combat feel aren’t there yet.
• Hero-style classes are intriguing, but the current execution feels shallow and clunky.
• The extraction flow (pod scanners, random gas lockdowns) should set up nasty PvP ambushes.

The Vertical Arena Is the Star

The Liberty Grand is a smart pivot away from extraction’s usual sprawling maps. Instead of miles of forest or industrial sprawl, you’re threading floors: hospital, casino, TV studio, corporate offices-each space readable, distinct, and dense with choke points. Elevators and stairwells aren’t just traversal, they’re strategy. They’re safe from the toxic gas that randomly locks down floors, but never safe from a rival squad camping doors. It feels more like The Raid or Dredd than a looter-shooter, which is exactly what this genre needed.

That randomness matters. Instead of a predictable storm pushing everyone inward, the game kills off floors at intervals, forcing squads to move up or down on the fly. You might be flushed into an unexplored level full of loot-and hungry undead-or back into an area you just cleared, now a funnel for human ambushes. It’s a cleaner way to manufacture collisions without erasing the “choose your route” feel extraction fans love.

The loot game leans Tarkov with inventory Tetris and value triage. I loved that quiet minute where you’re rearranging meds and contraband while eyeing an elevator you know someone else heard. That’s extraction at its best: greed versus survival, with architecture tightening the screws.

Combat: Gory Feedback, Clunky Feel

I played solo in a PvE-only slice and ran two heroes: Lockdown (bow) and Brick (sledgehammer). Lockdown rewards precision, but right now he’s one-note and stiff; landing headshots is satisfying, yet the gap between “deadly” and “useless” feels too wide the moment you miss or get swarmed. The devs have already announced a Lockdown rework, which tracks—he needs more utility or smoother handling.

Brick, on the other hand, clicks immediately. The sledgehammer hits with gross, crunchy dismemberment and visible flesh damage that sells every swing. But the broader combat still lacks flow. Animations don’t quite blend, recovery windows feel chunky, and zombies are more quantity than character. I saw crawlers, office shamblers, and the occasional ceiling surprise, but nothing that changed my tactics beyond “kite, funnel, crush.” Early build caveat applies, yet the enemy roster needs more toybox variety—sprinters that flush campers, armored variants that force weak point play, anything to push decision-making.

The good news: the level design amplifies even this basic combat. An office floor becomes a kill box with overturned desks for cover and vent crawlers pressuring your flanks. It’s intense without being cheap, and the soundscape—elevator pings, scanners chirping, gas warnings—layers in that game-show-from-hell vibe.

Extraction Without the Circle

Extraction pods are tracked with a handheld scanner that starts beeping when you’re close, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes squads panic. Pods take several seconds to unlock, and the one I found was swarming with zeds before I could even start the process. Add human opponents and you’ve got textbook PvPvE chaos: one player kites, one clears, one watches the door—and everyone listens for that elevator ding that spells trouble.

Crucially, the gas lockdowns don’t feel like a gimmick. They’re a tactical prompt—“move now, but choose a path”—and the fact that stairwells and elevators are gas-safe creates intentional routes for ambush play. Hunt: Showdown players will immediately see the mind games here; this is extraction designed to weaponize geometry, not just aim.

What I’m Watching Next

Hero design is the big swing. If classes are just “bow guy” and “hammer guy,” The Midnight Walkers will stall. If each brings distinct utility—door control, noise management, revive quirks, vision tools—it becomes a squad tactics game inside a horror funhouse. The Lockdown rework is a good sign. I’m also curious about progression: are we talking meaningful unlocks or grindy stat bumps? In a PvPvE extraction, power creep is a quick route to unfun lobbies.

On the technical side, this game lives or dies on network performance and audio occlusion. Vertical maps punish sloppy sound; I need to read a footstep two floors up versus one behind a door, or the mind games fall apart. And please, give us crisp movement—vaults, peeks, and cancels that match the pace the level design is begging for.

Even with the caveats, I’m in. The Liberty Grand’s floor-by-floor pressure cooker is a fresh take in a crowded genre. If the team nails combat feel, enemy variety, and class depth, this could sit comfortably alongside Tarkov, Hunt, and Dark and Darker as a different flavor of extraction—shorter sightlines, nastier ambushes, and a mean streak a mile high.

TL;DR

The Midnight Walkers pairs a standout vertical map with smart PvPvE pressure—random gas lockdowns, risky elevators, and loot that tempts bad decisions. Atmosphere and level design impress; combat and enemy variety need work. If the class reworks land and the netcode holds, Liberty Grand could be our next favorite murder tower.