The Midnight Walkers

Introduction

The Midnight Walkers, released into Early Access on 28 January 2026 by Oneway Ticket Studio, drops players into the Liberty Grand Center, a 20-floor complex overrun by zombies, for a melee-focused, Dark and Darker-inspired PvPvE extraction shooter. It sits Mixed across a sample of around 1475 reviews. Reading through that sample alongside the developer's own official posts tells a story that goes well beyond typical Early Access rough edges, and this review treats that story as central to its score.

A concept reviewers genuinely respond to

Set aside the business difficulties for a moment, because the underlying concept draws real, specific praise from a meaningful share of this sample. Reviewers repeatedly credit the floor-based extraction structure, players queue into a set range of floors in the complex, loot and fight their way through, and race to reach randomly placed, periodically gassed-out escape points before time runs out. Multiple reviewers specifically praise the level of environmental detail on offer, crediting the developers with interior design unusual for an Early Access release at this price. Several reviewers specifically credit the class-based ability system and gear-score risk-reward loop with real strategic depth, distinct enough from Dark and Darker, the game's most obvious point of comparison, that more than one longtime Dark and Darker player specifically says they enjoy this more.

Missing fundamentals reviewers say the genre needs

Set against that praise, this review found a specific, repeated and detailed complaint concerning combat itself: no sprint, no dodge, and no block or parry available to most classes. Multiple reviewers independently describe the resulting combat as two characters slowly walking toward each other while spamming a single attack button, several specifically comparing player and zombie movement speed to "elderly people waiting for their next dosage." This review reads that level of specificity, not simply "combat feels bad" but a list of concrete missing systems reviewers expect from the genre, as a credible, structural design gap rather than a difficulty complaint.

A documented, developer-confirmed collapse of the original live-service plan

This is the part of this review that matters most, and this review draws it directly from the developer's own official posts rather than from player speculation. Ray, the studio's director, published two consecutive "Update on the Development Team and Our Path Forward" posts confirming, in the studio's own words, that the development team was reorganised into "a much smaller team than before," that community managers had departed, and that "it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to continue maintaining the live service in the same way as before" given ongoing server costs against a shrinking player base. A second, later post from the same director goes further, stating directly that "maintaining the live servers has become a significant burden under the current circumstances" and announcing a structural pivot: The Midnight Walkers would transition from its original dedicated live-server PvPvE structure to an offline-capable PvE format supporting solo and co-op play, explicitly framed by the developer as a way to keep the game "playable" and prevent it from "disappearing from your libraries," rather than shutting the service down outright. This review treats that as a serious, well-documented business-health story in its own right, not a rumour repeated by disgruntled players, since it comes directly from the studio.

Players are split on the outcome, and this review reports both sides

Reading the review sample against that timeline explains a real split in player sentiment. Several reviewers, writing before or during the restructuring, describe the transition away from live PvPvE as destroying what they specifically enjoyed about the game, with one directly warning "Nakwon will be destroy you" over the shift. Other reviewers, writing after, describe the PvE conversion positively, one specifically thanking the developers "for choosing to preserve the game by switching to P2P hosting rather than simply letting it disappear," and several others reporting the change "scratched an itch" they'd been missing. This review reads that split as genuine rather than contradictory: players who specifically wanted competitive PvPvE lost the game they bought, while players more interested in the extraction-survival loop itself gained a more stable, sustainable version of it.

Specific technical and regional complaints

Beyond the structural story above, this review found a specific, detailed bug report worth flagging directly: one reviewer describes a crash during extraction that deleted 30 hours of character progression, separately reporting no developer response after filing it. Multiple reviewers specifically report severe regional latency, with one Australian reviewer citing 160 millisecond ping making the game effectively unplayable outside supported server regions. This review also found reviewers specifically describing a small and shrinking concurrent player base making PvPvE lobbies difficult to fill even shortly after launch, a structural complaint this review reads as directly connected to the live-service sustainability problems the developer has since publicly confirmed.

Why this review scores the game cautiously despite real fan enthusiasm

It's worth being direct about how this review weighs a concept with genuine, demonstrated fan enthusiasm against a documented business collapse serious enough that the developer itself describes it as an existential threat to the project. The core extraction loop and floor design draw real, specific praise, and the developer deserves credit for choosing transparency and a preservation pivot over silently abandoning the game. But a project that launched as a live-service PvPvE extraction shooter and, within roughly six months, publicly confirmed team downsizing and an inability to sustain that live service is a fundamentally different, riskier proposition for a new buyer than its Early Access marketing suggested at launch. This review scores The Midnight Walkers as a game with real ideas worth watching from a safe distance, not one to buy into today expecting the multiplayer experience it launched with.

Final Verdict

The Midnight Walkers offers a genuinely distinct, melee-focused take on the extraction-shooter formula, with detailed environments and a class system that draw real, specific praise from reviewers who enjoy it. What holds this score down is a documented, developer-confirmed collapse of the game's original live-service PvPvE structure, team downsizing serious enough that the studio's own director describes it directly, missing combat fundamentals many reviewers say the genre requires, and specific technical and regional complaints. Approach with real caution, and go in understanding this project's business foundation, not just its combat, is still visibly unsettled.