How to Play The Walking Dead: Empires

September 10, 2024

The Walking Dead: Empires is a survival MMO game set in the thrilling and dangerous world of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Players can download and play the game for free on PC or Mac through Gala Games, then take on walkers and hostile survivors alike in an open-world strategic challenge for survival.

Download and play now on Gala Games

If you haven’t played The Walking Dead: Empires yet, follow this simple guide from the development team. It will take you through essentials like crafting, shelter, leveling and food gathering, as well as the added advantages of NFT item ownership.

To fully experience The Walking Dead: Empires, follow these key steps:

1. Hero Selection

Once you’ve installed the game, choose a hero. You’ll find beloved characters from the show, along with some new game-exclusive heroes you haven’t met yet! The variety of characters’ weapons and skill sets provides for unique gameplay experiences with every character you have available.

2. Early Game

Start your journey in an apocalyptic world crawling with walkers and all sorts of other dangers. Your primary objective is to gather materials, then use them for crafting to survive the challenges and enemies you encounter.

Tool and Weapon Crafting: Use the materials you’ve gathered to create tools and weapons. Crafting enhances your hero’s abilities and opens up a progression to higher-quality items. This is crucial for facing the increasingly difficult threats of the wasteland.

Shelter Construction: Collect resources like wood and metal to build and upgrade your shelter. A higher-level HQ offers stronger defenses, additional crafting stations, and improved facilities that provide key advantages.

Food Gathering and Preparations: Search and hunt for food to keep your hero in good condition. As you improve your culinary skills, you can craft meals that boost your hero’s recovery, which is vital for surviving tough battles.

NFTs: Owning and activating NFTs offers significant advantages that can enhance your gameplay experience. Player-owned items may include unique heroes, advanced crafting stations that allow you to create higher-quality tools, weapons, and other items. However, it is important to note that players who do not own NFTs can still enjoy the same gameplay experience. The core gameplay experience—focused on survival, combat, and shelter building—is accessible and equal for all players.

3. Leveling Up and Masteries:

Hero leveling: As you complete missions or explore the world while eliminating walkers, your hero gains experience (XP). Once you have enough XP, your character will level up. With each level, new skills and upgrades are unlocked, increasing your combat effectiveness and survival capabilities. Each level-up comes with specific requirements or conditions:

Mission and Exploration: Actively participating in missions and exploring new areas is key to earning XP. The more you engage in these activities, the faster you will level up.
Elimination of Walkers: Defeating enemies is also an important source of XP. Each enemy defeated contributes to your progress toward the next level.
Resource Gathering: While not directly related to leveling up, resource gathering is essential for keeping your character in good condition, allowing you to continue facing missions and battles.
HQ leveling: Upgrading your HQ is essential, as it directly affects your survival capabilities and shelter efficiency. A higher-level HQ unlocks more advanced interior structures, crafting stations, and stronger defensive structures, giving you a significant advantage against walkers. To level up your HQ, you need to collect specific resources such as wood and other valuable materials. The amount and type of resources required will increase with each upgrade level.

A higher-level HQ also improves the defense of your shelter, making your survival more sustainable. Additionally, as you progress in the game, walker herds become stronger and more numerous. A high-level HQ is crucial for withstanding attacks from these herds, protecting your hero and defending your resources.

Masteries: Specializations in different skill disciplines are known as masteries. By mastering a particular skill, you can craft high quality weapons, tools, and equipment that provide an edge in combat, exploration and defense. For example, tool crafting mastery can be leveled up by simply crafting more tools.

4. Gameplay Choices: Cooperative or Solo

The Walking Dead: Empires allows you to decide how to face this horrific new world. While you can choose to play solo, relying on your own skills alone to survive, there comes a point in the game where joining an alliance becomes almost essential. As you level up your HQ to higher levels, the herds of enemies attacking your base will become increasingly challenging, defending it alone nearly impossible. Working with other players in an alliance lets you share resources, overcome tough challenges, and effectively protect your base. This cooperative approach is key to surviving and thriving in the world of The Walking Dead.