Telltale’s The Walking Dead has never really been topped. The studio itself went on to make some great adventure games, like Tales from the Borderlands, but very little ever reached the highs of Lee and Clementine’s budding father-daughter relationship as the rest of the world fell into ruin. At the time, The Walking Dead was a reinvention of the adventure game, focusing on characters and dialogue choices as opposed to puzzle-solving, and it was met with acclaim. The first season of The Walking Dead, which released episodically throughout 2012, was considered by many the game of the year, and became the foundation for Telltale’s future, as well as a reference point for many, many narratives in games after it for good reason.
The Walking Dead has some of the most precise and incisive character dialogue of the time. Rarely has a game gotten away with as many quiet and effective gut punches as The Walking Dead. It never tries too hard to paw at depth, nor does it ever treat its audience like children. Its characters are all rough around the edges, as is beautifully conveyed by both the writing and the game’s graphics, which heavily crib from the style of the comic books rather than the realism of the live-action show that put the series on the map. It really feels quite singular.
If you’re at all interested in the history of adventure games, The Walking Dead franchise, or the flashpoint for some of the most widely heralded stories of the 2010s, this game is a must have. You, too, can have the entirety of the series, spanning four “seasons” of episodic chunks, a subseries focusing on the beloved character Michonne, and the interstitial 400 Days chapter for just 10 bucks.
