The Walking Dead
Developer/publisher Telltale Games Format 360, Android, iOS, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Vita Release 2012
Formed in the ashes of LucasArts, Telltale Games spent six years building upon its legacy with a series of episodic point-andclick adventures before the studio decided it was time to shake things up. And so it released another episodic adventure based on a popular licensed property – this time with a stronger focus on story over puzzles, alongside QTE-centric action sequences. The result was a crushing disappointment.
Happily, the critical reception for Jurassic Park: The Game didn’t discourage Telltale, and with its next major release it hit paydirt. On paper, The Walking Dead didn’t appear to be much of a departure from its immediate predecessor: indeed, Episode One’s more conventional puzzle elements felt little more than an afterthought. But the writing was better, while in the central relationship between protagonist Lee and surrogate daughter Clementine it had an emotional hook. By the third episode, Telltale dropped the pretence: this was no longer a pseudopoint-and-click, but a new breed of adventure game. Besides, its characters were enough of a puzzle in themselves, with your decisions colouring their responses towards you. And that oft-mocked acknowledgement of a character’s response to your decisions proved a masterstroke, not only letting the player know their choices were having an impact, but also creating a sense of unease. How exactly will they remember that?
For once, player choices were no longer about pushing a character along a binary good/evil scale. From the outset, it was clear Lee was no paragon; the decisions placed in front of him often felt like picking between two renegade options, with even the lesser of two evils often resulting in a grisly fate for someone. The knotty ambiguities of Robert Kirkman’s fiction lent themselves beautifully to interactive drama: if the comic book asked provocative moral questions of its readers, here players could supply their own answers. And so, with Telltale adhering closely to a two-monthly schedule, each new episode became a watercooler moment. Forums and social media buzzed with discussions about choices and consequences. Did you save Doug or Carley? Did you rescue Ben or let him fall?
Awards duly (and deservedly) followed, but Telltale had made too many poor moral choices of its own: stretching its staff to breaking point, shedding much of its writing talent and relying on an engine that had, like its necrotic antagonists, been falling apart since Episode One. Regular scheduling delays for subsequent series – each slotted into the same, increasingly overfamiliar template – saw players drift away until Telltale’s sudden closure in 2018. Yet if the studio’s tale is a cautionary one, the legacy of its finest game is assured. Here was proof of an audience ready for mature storytelling, one that could happily accept a lack of mechanical complexity in favour of a well-written narrative they could shape. The likes of Life Is Strange, Firewatch and Oxenfree – the latter two directed by Telltale alumni – are testament to The Walking Dead’s zombie-like endurance, and a reminder that developers and players alike will indeed remember it.