The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
We grit our teeth and get stuck into the traumatic first two episodes of the new season.
As disgraced baseball star Javier García, the rapidly spreading viral outbreak forces you to shift priorities fast and shoulder new burdens just as quickly, making you responsible for two young lives. With our setting transferred to Virginia and a cast of new, original characters, A New Frontier is a fresh start, a jumping-on point for those who’ve yet to experience Telltale’s carousel of emotional pain.
Clementine, the hardy teenage heroine, who we first met as a vulnerable eight-year-old, is the subject of an opening questionnaire, allowing you to skip loading in your season two save file and start afresh. You can also pick Clem’s friends. Choose Kenny and he’ll be treated like a saint, but opt for Jane and Kenny will be entirely absent.
Clem’s fate is intertwined with that of Javier. His story begins with the death of his father and a scrap with his overbearing brother, David, who’s furious that Javier’s late to the deathbed. The world is blissfully unaware of ‘walkers’ at this point, so when David’s daughter Mariana wonders aloud why her grandpa is suddenly standing up, the family is intrigued rather than horrified. That’s until he starts biting. It’s one of many ways A New Frontier invites newcomers, by launching at the dawn of the comics’ chaos to show how a different set of people, with their own lives, values and perspectives, react to a shared catastrophe.
Flash forward four years and Javier’s predicament has grown complicated. He’s in a car with Mariana, his nephew Gabe, and David’s wife, Kate. The battered station wagon turned moving fortress is their only defence against a thousandstrong herd of walkers marching relentlessly their way. Every group of survivors has a plan — for Javi’s clan it is simply to keep rolling. But that will be stressful in a car with busted AC and a stereo that ate Gabe’s last cassette.
That title of ‘parent’ is one Javier takes on reluctantly. This tension is there throughout the two episodes, balancing the protection of the youngsters against the preservation of your identity. Mariana stays on the right side of charming, using earphones to avoid confrontation despite her tape player being out of batteries. Gabe, on the other hand, is a petulant brat. Later, in a junkyard, Javier finds a hut with beds, weapons, and chocolate pudding, and Gabe begs his uncle to pitch up there. Do so and you’ll score points with him but put everyone in danger. Don’t and he throws a strop. It’s a classic dilemma, a choice between keeping your family happy or safe. This game is about choices. Even if those choices are illusory in retrospect, they feel real enough at the time.
The pacing is consistent with previous seasons. Typically there’s a lull while you poke around a hub of life, then havoc erupts and you use QTEs to dodge, shoot and stab. What has changed is Telltale’s proficiency. This is a finely honed model, with carefully judged proportions of tender moments, scintillating set-pieces, tough choices and painful cliffhangers. Sticking to a tried-and-tested format, A New Frontier takes two successful steps into the series’ new season, rewarding those who’ve been there from the start but not requiring you to have been.
Ben Griffin