The Walking Dead (video game)

The Walking Dead ( listen^{? /i}) (also known as The Walking Dead: The Game) is an episodic adventure game. It is based on the comic book of the same name by Robert Kirkman and is released for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The game was developed by Telltale Games. The Walking Dead was scheduled for release in late 2011, but was delayed until early 2012 due to production and development delays. The first season of the game consists of five episodes released between April and November 2012. The iOS versions of the episodes were released shortly after. Retail versions of the complete series were also released. The German retail version includes German subtitles for the game. An update is expected to add German subtitles for previously purchased games at a later date. The second season of the game called "The Walking Dead - Season Two" also consists of five episodes, the first was released on December 17, 2013 and the last episode on August 16, 2014. In August 2018, a version of the game was released for the Nintendo Switch.

The game is set in the same fictional world as the comic series. Events unfold chronologically after the zombie apocalypse is unleashed in Georgia. Most of the characters are newly invented for the game; the protagonist, university professor Lee Everett, takes care of the young girl Clementine while they work with other survivors. Several characters from the comic book series make appearances in the game, including Hershel Greene and Glenn.

The Walking Dead is a graphic adventure game that focuses on story and characters rather than puzzle solving. The story is influenced by the player's decisions and actions. As the plot progresses, certain characters die or take a corresponding stance towards the protagonist depending on the choices made. These decisions are carried over into the next episodes.

Game mechanics

The player can interact with characters and examine objects. He also has to use items from his inventory and interact with the environment. According to Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead focuses on character development and story rather than the action elements that other zombie games, such as Left 4 Dead, focus on.

In some sections, the player must make a decision in a certain amount of time, which often has a long-term effect on the story. Other decision-making opportunities in conversations require the player to choose an answer in a certain amount of time, otherwise they say nothing, which can change other characters' attitudes towards them. There are also action-based sequences in which the player must follow certain on-screen instructions, called quick-time events, to save himself or other characters from death; if the player fails to do so, the game restarts at that point.

The player can set an option to be told as they play how a person reacted to a response and whether they changed their attitude towards Lee. Each episode contains five points where the player must choose important decisions between two options; through Telltale's servers, the game calculates how many players have chosen which option, allowing the player to compare themselves to other players. The game can be completed regardless of what choices one has made, however the progression of the story is based on those choices. The game allows for different save slots to be used, and includes a rewind function, allowing the player to go back and change previous choices.

Season 1 plot

Because of the choices the player can make, some plot details may vary.

When a sheriff takes Lee from Atlanta to a local jail, he runs over a "biter" with his patrol car. He breaks through the guardrail with the car and crashes down a slope, allowing Lee to escape. Shortly after, he witnesses a zombie attack. He seeks refuge in a nearby suburban home and finds that eight-year-old Clementine is hiding there; her parents have traveled to Savannah before the disaster. Lee promises to take care of Clementine and help her find her parents using a walkie-talkie.

They meet other survivors and seek refuge on the farm of Hershel Greene and his son Shawn. Lee meets Kenny, his wife Katjaa, and their son "Duck," who plan to travel to Savannah to find a boat and escape the mainland. After a "biter attack" in which Shawn is killed, the group is banished by Hershel and they flee to Macon, Lee's hometown. They seek refuge in a drugstore with several other survivors, including Lilly and her father Larry. Lee notices that it is his parents' drugstore, but says nothing to the others. Shortly after, he is forced to kill his brother, who has already become a biter, in order to gain access to the medicine from the drugstore. The group is forced to flee to a nearby motel when they are attacked. One of the survivors is killed by a Biter in the process. At the motel, they are able to set up a defensive line.

Three months later, the group has almost no food. When they rescue Ben, a high school student, from another zombie attack and take refuge in the motel, Lilly worries about the group's resources. Ben mentions that you don't have to be bitten, but everyone turns after they die - regardless of how they die - and that biters can only be killed by destroying their brains. They meet the St. Johns, who run a dairy farm that seems to be well protected against biters. The St. Johns offer them shelter and food in exchange for gasoline. Lee finds out that the farm has made a deal with bandits; they give them food in exchange for not being attacked by the bandits. Later, they find the campsite of a confused woman, Jolene, who is killed before she can reveal the St. Johns' secret. Lee and Kenny investigate the farm and find that the St. Johns have become cannibals. However, the group is quickly overpowered and locked up before they can react. Locked in cold storage, Larry suffers a heart attack and Lee (one of two possibilities) and Kenny see no other way out but to smash his head to keep him from turning. They manage to escape and overpower the St. Johns. They leave the family's fate in the hands of the biters who have overrun the farm. On their way back to the motel, they find what appears to be an abandoned car with supplies, which they take despite Clementine's objections.

A week later, Lilly figures out that someone must have given the bandits medicine, but before Lee can find the culprit, both bandits and biters storm the motel. The group is forced to flee without their supplies in an RV, where Kenny and Katjaa reveal to Lee that their son Duck was bitten during the attack. In the RV, the increasingly paranoid Lilly demands justice for her father and tries to find a culprit for the stolen supplies; the situation comes to a head and Lilly eventually shoots a survivor. Afterwards, Lilly leaves the group. They find a train still in working order during their escape and meet a homeless man named Chuck. He joins the group and they ride the train towards Savannah. On the journey, Katjaa notices that Duck has almost turned. They convince Kenny to stop the train to take care of Duck. But instead, Katjaa takes Duck into the woods and kills herself. The group kills Duck out of mercy, and then head back on their journey. Ben secretly reveals to Lee that it was he who made the deal with the bandits, and shows remorse, feeling responsible for Katjaa and Duck's deaths. They get help from a young couple, Christa and Omid, when a truck trailer full of fuel blocks their way. As the group tries to clear the track, a zombie horde approaches and seems to have followed the train. As they flee, Omid injures his leg. Just before they arrive in Savannah, Lee hears a strange person trying to contact Clementine on her walkie-talkie. The ominous man on the other end tries to assure her that she will be safe once Lee and his friends are out of the way, and that she would see her family again soon.

In Savannah, the group takes shelter in a barricaded house. Kenny and Lee go to the shore, only to find that not a single boat is left. They encounter Molly, a scavenger, who explains that the boats have been gone for a long time and all useful resources are hoarded and guarded by a radical group calling themselves Crawford, a community that has barricaded itself to be safe from biter attacks. During a Biter attack, Lee becomes separated from the others and is forced to find his way through the city's sewers. In the sewers, Lee finds Chuck (who has also been separated from the group) dead and takes his gun. In his search, he encounters the doctor Vernon and several of his patients hiding in an abandoned morgue - all cancer survivors who were to be "weeded out" by Crawford due to their illness. Vernon offers Lee to go back with him to Omid's house and examine his leg. Back at the house, Clementine shows Lee a boat she found in a shed in the backyard of the house. Kenny examines it and it turns out that gasoline and a battery are missing to get the boat started. With Molly and Vernon's help, they find a way to sneak into Crawford to obtain those very things. Once in Crawford, they find that the entire population has become biters. Though largely unscathed, they get the things they need from an abandoned school that has served as a base for the people of Crawford, Ben accidentally lets the Biters into the school, forcing the group to flee. During this escape, Ben nearly falls victim to the Biter hordes; he says that he deserves to die because of his actions in the past. The group returns to the house. After checking on Omid's health, Vernon takes his medicine and leaves. Before doing so, he tells Lee that he finds Lee to be haphazard and no longer able to properly care for Clem. He offers to take her into his own care instead.

The next morning, Clementine is gone. As Lee searches the house and surrounding area, he is attacked and bitten by a biter. Knowing his time is short, he travels with the others to the morgue, believing Vernon is responsible for the abduction. Instead, they find the bunker abandoned. The man then tells them on the walkie-talkie that he is holding Clementine captive in a downtown hotel, and should Lee want her back, he should come to her. The group returns to the house and it turns out that Vernon and his group stole the boat while they were away. The survivors realize that their only option is to rescue Clementine and then flee the town. Unexpectedly, the house is overrun by biters, but they are able to escape. During their escape across the rooftops, Ben (should this have survived Episode 4) falls and is impaled on a railing. Kenny sacrifices himself to hold back the biters for Lee, Christa, and Omid, and with his last bullet, gives Ben the coup de grace to save him from a worse fate. Should Ben die in Episode 4, Christa falls into a hole full of biters where she can't get out on her own. Kenny then jumps in and helps her out, but is cornered by the biters. In both cases, his fate remains uncertain. Lee tells the two that they will meet at the outskirts of town, where he plans to leave Clementine in their care.

Lee fights his way through the hordes of biters, from which no place in the city now seems safe, until he reaches the hotel. In one room he finds the stranger with the walkie-talkie. It turns out he was the owner of the car the group had looted after the incidents at the St. Johns. He reveals to Lee how he has been watching the group's movements over the past few weeks. He holds Lee's decisions against him, telling him he doesn't think he'd be a good father to Clem. Lee soon realizes the man is crazy as he talks to his wife's severed head in a travel bag. Clementine kills the man. To get safely through the throng of biters outside, Lee smears Clementine with the blood and guts of a dead biter to take on its scent. As they leave the hotel, Clementine discovers her parents - both of whom have become biters - while Lee passes out and collapses to the ground. When he wakes up, he realizes that Clementine has taken him to a safe building. Too weak to move, and knowing that he will soon become a biter, he instructs Clementine to tie him to a radiator to protect herself from him. He also tells her how to take a biter by surprise so that she can escape and find Christa and Omid. In his final moments, Lee says goodbye to Clementine. It is then up to the player to decide whether Lee should become a biter or Clem should shoot him.

After the credits, Clementine can be seen walking alone in a field. She sees two figures in the distance who turn to look at her. She nervously holds her gun as she apparently tries to decide whether to call out or find a place to hide.