User:Nub098765/TWD

"The Walking Dead: Season One" redirects here. For the first season of the TV series, see The Walking Dead season 1.

This page is about the Telltale game. For other video games based on the franchise, see The Walking Dead (franchise) § Video games.

The Walking Dead
Developer(s)	Telltale Games
Publisher(s)	Telltale Games
Director(s)	Sean Vanaman Jake Rodkin Dennis Lenart Eric Parsons Nick Herman Sean Ainsworth
Designer(s)	Sean Vanaman Jake Rodkin Mark Darin Harrison G. Pink Andrew Langley Sean Ainsworth
Programmer(s)	Carl Muckenhoupt Randy Tudor Keenan Patterson
Artist(s)	Derek Sakai
Writer(s)	Sean Vanaman Mark Darin Gary Whitta
Composer(s)	Jared Emerson-Johnson
Series	The Walking Dead
Engine	Telltale Tool
Platform(s)	Android iOS Kindle Fire HDX OS X Windows Nintendo Switch Ouya PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 PlayStation Vita Xbox 360 Xbox One
Release	Episode 1 Windows, Mac OS X WW: April 24, 2012 PlayStation 3 NA: April 24, 2012 EU: April 25, 2012 Xbox 360 WW: April 27, 2012 iOS WW: July 26, 2012 Kindle Fire HDX WW: December 19, 2013 Episode 2 Xbox 360 WW: June 27, 2012 Windows, Mac OS X WW: June 29, 2012 PlayStation 3 NA: June 29, 2012 EU: July 6, 2012 iOS WW: August 29, 2012 Kindle Fire HDX WW: December 19, 2013 Episode 3 PlayStation 3 WW: August 28, 2012 Windows, Mac OS X, Xbox 360 WW: August 29, 2012 iOS WW: October 28, 2012 Kindle Fire HDX WW: December 19, 2013 Episode 4 PlayStation 3 WW: October 9, 2012 Windows, Mac OS X, Xbox 360 WW: October 10, 2012 iOS WW: November 8, 2012 Kindle Fire HDX WW: December 19, 2013 Episode 5 PlayStation 3 WW: November 20, 2012 Windows, Mac OS X, Xbox 360 WW: November 21, 2012 iOS WW: November 20, 2012 Kindle Fire HDX WW: December 19, 2013 Retail version Mac OS X, Windows, PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 NA: December 11, 2012 AU: May 9, 2013 EU: May 10, 2013 PlayStation Vita WW: August 22, 2013 PlayStation 4, Xbox One NA: October 14, 2014 EU: October 31, 2014 Switch WW: August 28, 2018
Genre(s)	Graphic adventure Interactive movie
Mode(s)	Single-player

The Walking Dead is a 2012 episodic graphic adventure video game developed and published by Telltale Games. Set in the same universe as the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, it is the first installment in Telltale's The Walking Dead video game series. The game follows Lee Everett, a convicted criminal who becomes the guardian of a young girl named Clementine amidst the onset of a zombie apocalypse in Georgia. Player decisions, such as dialogue choices and actions, influence the story’s direction, with the consequences of these choices carrying over across the game’s episodes.

Telltale Games acquired rights to develop The Walking Dead in 2011 after success with other licensed titles. They collaborated closely with Robert Kirkman, focusing on making a narrative where players made morally challenging decisions that influenced the storyline while avoiding conventional game-over scenarios. While players' choices impact relationships and the immediate story, they do not significantly alter the overarching plot, creating a balance between player agency and a cohesive narrative. The art direction, particularly in the design of Clementine, aimed for realism while keeping the comic-book style.

Released in five episodes between April and November 2012 on various platforms, The Walking Dead received widespread praise for its emotional depth, the dynamic between Lee and Clementine, and its impact on the adventure game genre. It won year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications, and has been regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made. By the end of 2012, it had sold over 8.5 million episodes, with total sales reaching 28 million copies by July 2024, making it the best-selling adventure game of all time.

In 2013, Telltale expanded the game into a franchise by releasing an additional downloadable episode, 400 Days, to extend the first season and bridge the gap towards Season 2, which was released in 2013 and 2014. Season 3 and the final season were released in 2016–2017 and 2018–2019, respectively, along with a spin-off game based on the character Michonne.

Gameplay

The Walking Dead is a point-and-click graphic adventure video game, played from a third-person perspective, in which the player character, Lee Everett, tries to survive and protect a young girl named Clementine during the midst of a zombie apocalypse, working with a small group of survivors. Using an on-screen reticle, the player can examine and interact with characters and items, and must make use of collected items and the environment. Throughout the game, the player is presented with the ability to interact with their surroundings and options to determine the nature of that interaction. For example, the player may be able to look at a character, talk to that character, or if they are carrying an item, offer it to the character or ask them about it. According to Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead game is focused more on developing characters and story, and less on the action tropes that tend to feature in other zombie-based games, such as Left 4 Dead.

Some parts of the game require timed responses from the player, often leading to significant decisions that will impact the game's story, in the manner of role-playing games (RPGs). Some conversation trees require the player to make a selection within a limited time, otherwise Lee will remain quiet, which can affect how other characters respond to him. Unlike in other RPGs such as the Mass Effect or Fallout series, where choices fall on either side of a "good or evil" scale, the choices within The Walking Dead have ambiguous results, having an effect on the attitude of the non-player characters towards Lee. The player can opt to enable a "choice notification" feature, in which the game's interface indicates that a significant change has happened, such as a character changing their disposition towards Lee. In more action-based sequences, the player must follow on-screen prompts for quick time events (QTEs) so as to keep themselves or other characters alive. If the player dies, the game restarts from just prior to the QTE. Other timed situations involve major decisions, such as choosing which of two characters to keep alive.

Each episode contains five points where the player must make a significant decision, choosing from one of two available options. Through Telltale's servers, the game tracks how many players selected which option and lets the player compare their choices to the rest of the player base. The game can be completed regardless of what choices are made in these situations; the main events of the story, as described below, will continue regardless of what choices are made, but the presence and behavior of the non-player characters in later scenes will be affected by these choices. The game does allow the player to make multiple saves, and includes a "rewind" feature where the player can back up and alter a previous decision, thus facilitating the exploration of alternative choices.

Plot

This is a broad overview of the plot. Certain decisions made by the player will alter details of specific events.

The Walking Dead occurs simultaneously with the events from the original comic series, where a zombie apocalypse overwhelms much of society. On the first day of the outbreak, Lee Everett (Dave Fennoy) is being transported to prison when the police car crashes after hitting a walker. After killing the reanimated cop, Lee flees from a group of walkers and takes shelter in a suburban home, where he meets Clementine (Melissa Hutchison), a young girl whose parents had traveled to Savannah. They are rescued by Shawn Greene (Peter Edward Mussad), who takes them to his father Hershel’s (Chuck Kourouklis) farm, where they meet Kenny (Gavin Hammon), his wife Katjaa (Cissy Jones), and their son Duck (Max Kaufman). After Shawn is killed by walkers, Hershel demands that the group leave. They travel to Macon, Lee’s hometown, and join another group led by Lilly (Nicki Rapp), barricaded in Lee’s family pharmacy. The group includes Glenn (Nick Herman), who eventually leaves to find friends in Atlanta.

Three months later, the group has holed up in a nearby motel and is low on supplies. They encounter a group of survivors, including Ben Paul (Trevor Hoffman), whose teacher's death teaches the group that everyone is already infected, turning into walkers upon death, regardless of being bitten. They make a deal with the St. Johns, a family running a nearby dairy farm, to exchange gasoline for food. However, they discover the St. Johns are cannibals. The group loses two of their own, including Lilly’s father Larry (Terry McGovern), but eventually escapes the farm, leaving it overrun by walkers. On their way back to the motel, they find an abandoned car full of supplies and take what they need. Later, bandits attack the motel, drawing a horde of walkers. The group escapes, but Duck is bitten. Lilly, unstable after losing her father, kills one of the group members and is later left behind. The remaining survivors head to Savannah by train, planning to find a boat to escape the mainland. Along the way, they meet Chuck (Roger Jackson), a homeless survivor who advises Lee to teach Clementine how to defend herself. En route to Savannah, Duck succumbs to his bite, and Katjaa, in turn, commits suicide. Near Savannah, the group meets Omid (Owen Thomas) and Christa (Mara Junot), a couple who joins them. A walkie-talkie that Clementine carries suddenly activates, with a man claiming he has her parents in Savannah.

In Savannah, the group sets up shelter in an abandoned mansion but loses Chuck to walkers. Lee and Kenny discover that all the boats in the area are either gone or destroyed, and that the walled community of Crawford has scavenged most of the supplies. Separated from the group, Lee encounters another group led by Vernon (Butch Engle), who helps him return to the mansion, where they discover a motorboat in a shed. The group raids Crawford for supplies, only to find the community overrun by walkers. They manage to escape, but not without losses. Vernon then leaves, doubting Lee's ability to protect Clementine. Clementine, desperate to find her parents, goes missing. In his haste to find her, Lee is bitten by a walker. Realizing he doesn’t have much time left, Lee tries to find Vernon’s group but discovers they have stolen the boat. Clementine contacts Lee via walkie-talkie, telling him that she is being held at a downtown hotel, the same one where her parents had stayed. Lee’s group heads to the hotel, navigating rooftops to avoid walkers in the streets. Kenny is seemingly lost after sacrificing himself to save another member. Separated from Omid and Christa, Lee reaches the hotel alone and confronts Clementine's captor, who reveals he is the owner of the car they had previously ransacked. After killing the stranger, Lee and Clementine cover themselves in walker guts to avoid detection and head through the streets.

They encounter Clementine’s zombified parents, and a weakening Lee helps her reach an abandoned store. Inside, Lee instructs Clementine to escape the city and find Omid and Christa. Lee instructs Clementine to either shoot him or leave him to become a walker. In a post-credits scene, Clementine, having escaped the city, spots two figures in the distance who notice her.

400 Days

The downloadable content 400 Days relates stories of other survivors in the zombie apocalypse, starting at its onset and occurring concurrently with the first season. It requires one to have played the first episode, A New Day, before starting.

There are five main stories:

• Vince (Anthony Lam) has been sentenced to prison for murder, which he had done to help his brother sometime prior to the outbreak. On Day 2 of the outbreak, Vince is on a prison-bound bus with Danny (Erik Braa) and Justin (Trevor Hoffmann) when following a stand-off, it is engulfed by walkers. Vince chooses one of the two to escape with, leaving the other to die.
• Wyatt (Jace Smykel) and his friend Eddie (Brandon Bales) have accidentally killed a friend of Nate (Jefferson Arca) and are fleeing from him in a car on Day 41 of the outbreak when they run over one of the prison guards from Vince's bus in a dense fog. One of them gets out to save the guard but is abandoned when the other one is attacked by Nate and flees in the car.
• Russell (Vegas Trip) is a teenager traveling by foot to visit his grandmother. On Day 184 of the outbreak, he is picked up by Nate, who takes Russell to a nearby gas station and truck stop, where they are attacked by an elderly man named Walt. Nate suggests killing and robbing Walt and his wife Jean, with Russell deliberating on staying with Nate or leaving him.
• Bonnie (Erin Yvette) is a former drug-addict traveling with Leland (Adam Harrington) and his wife Dee (Cissy Jones). Dee distrusts Bonnie due to suspecting that Leland is attracted to her. On Day 220 of the outbreak, they are pursued by survivors that Dee stole supplies from, forcing them to split up into a corn field. After accidentally killing Dee with a rebar, Bonnie must decide whether to tell Leland the truth or lie.
• Shel (Cissy Jones) and her younger sister Becca (Brett Pels) are members of the group seen in Bonnie's story and are residing in the truck stop seen in Russell's story. Several members are also Vernon's former companions who Lee encountered in Savannah. Roman (Kid Beyond) holds firm control of the group. When a Portuguese scavenger named Roberto attempts to steal from the group on Day 236 of the outbreak, Shel is given the deciding vote on him being killed or allowed to leave. Later on Day 259, fellow group member Stephanie (Dana Bauer) is caught stealing supplies, causing Roman to ask Shel to kill her. Shel then either goes through with it or escapes the camp with Becca on their caravan.

The five stories culminate in a final scene on Day 400 where Tavia (Rashida Clendening) discovers photos of the survivors on a billboard near the now-overrun truck stop, along with a map to a nearby location. She finds the group and offers them sanctuary nearby. Bonnie accepts, with the others either accepting or refusing depending on either their past choices or whether Tavia successfully convinces them.

Episodes

The game was separated into five episodes, released between April and November 2012. Each episode lasts about two and a half hours.

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
Main series
1	1	"A New Day"	Sean Vanaman Jake Rodkin	Sean Vanaman	April 24, 2012 (2012-04-24)
2	2	"Starved for Help"	Dennis Lenart	Mark Darin Story by: Chuck Jordan	June 27, 2012 (2012-06-27)
3	3	"Long Road Ahead"	Eric Parsons	Sean Vanaman Story by: Sean Vanaman Jake Rodkin Harrison G. Pink	August 28, 2012 (2012-08-28)
4	4	"Around Every Corner"	Nick Herman	Gary Whitta	October 9, 2012 (2012-10-09)
5	5	"No Time Left"	Sean Vanaman Jake Rodkin Sean Ainsworth	Sean Vanaman	November 20, 2012 (2012-11-20)
Downloadable content
6	6	"400 Days"	Sean Ainsworth	Sean Ainsworth Nick Breckon Mark Darin Sean Vanaman Gary Whitta	July 2, 2013 (2013-07-02)

Supplemental episodes

An additional episode, titled 400 Days, was released in July 2013 as downloadable content, bridging the gap between the first and second season. It focuses on five new characters, and is presented in a nonlinear narrative style; players can approach the five stories in any order they choose.

Development

Background

Before The Walking Dead, Telltale Games had success with episodic adventures based on established properties, such as three seasons of Sam & Max and the five-episode Tales of Monkey Island. In 2010, they obtained rights to Universal Studios' movies, creating Back to the Future: The Game and Jurassic Park: The Game; the latter featuring action elements inspired by Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain. Sean Vanaman noted that before securing The Walking Dead, Telltale's Carl Muckenhoupt was working on a text-based prototype with an "active world," where objects and characters acted independently of player input. Although Telltale considered using this concept for a Left 4 Dead spinoff, discussions with Valve did not materialize. Telltale announced deals with Robert Kirkman and Warner Bros. in February 2011 for episodic series based on The Walking Dead and Fables, with the Walking Dead series set to start in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Writing

Robert Kirkman helped Telltale develop The Walking Dead.

During the game's development, Robert Kirkman and comic publisher Skybound Entertainment collaborated with Telltale. Kirkman, who had enjoyed Telltale's Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, appreciated their storytelling focus and player engagement. Telltale's proposal, centered on decision-making and survival rather than action, appealed to him. Kirkman provided oversight on story elements for The Walking Dead universe while remaining hands-off in development. The CEO of Telltale, Dan Connors, noted that Kirkman's involvement helped shape the story and introduce new characters while incorporating established ones from the comics. However, Kirkman requested not to include Rick Grimes due to his long-term plans for the character. Although initially unimpressed with an early build, Kirkman praised the near-final version of the game, saying, "Holy shit guys, you did it".

Telltale drew inspiration from various media when developing The Walking Dead. Gameplay-wise, they referenced titles like Heavy Rain and the Uncharted series for in-game cinematics, while the player-choice mechanic was influenced by the Mass Effect series. They also sought inspiration from television shows like Game of Thrones and Mad Men for developing well-rounded characters within a short timeframe. Connors also believed that traditional conversation systems often lacked a "believable rhythm", leading to the introduction of a timed input system for more realistic dialogue.

The game's story was designed with the final scene of the fifth episode—where Clementine either shoots Lee or leaves him to become a walker—as the established ending that the game would build toward. Clementine's role was considered critical to the game's writing, with the team focusing on making her a "moral compass" while ensuring that as a child character, she wasn't perceived as whiny or annoying. The Stranger scene in the hotel was also planned early on to evaluate the player's moral choices. According to Sean Vanaman, each episode was developed by pairing a writer with a game designer to ensure cohesive plot and gameplay. Some gameplay ideas were discarded, such as a scene with the survivor group firing at zombies, as they did not fit the desired sense of panic.

Sean Vanaman directed and wrote most of The Walking Dead.

Choice

A major aspect in the writing of The Walking Dead was the concept of death, whether for the player or non-player characters. Telltale, founded by former LucasArts employees who had worked on games where the player could not die, incorporated player death if decisions weren’t made quickly enough, though the game would restart just before such moments. Additionally, the player’s choices could lead to the permanent deaths of non-player characters. This time-sensitive decision-making came from the prototype zombie game made by Muckenhoupt and was designed to maintain the game's pace. This led to the idea of tracking player decisions globally, and Telltale expanded their tracking tools to accommodate for such an idea.

Telltale aimed to immerse players in the story through non-game-ending choices, reducing the desire to use the rewind feature. Although choices were designed to seem significant, they often had little effect on the larger narrative. According to writer Gary Whitta, all choices were meant to be equally difficult, and the writers worked to keep the dialogue neutral to create an even split among player decisions. For example, in Episode 1, most players chose to save Carley over Doug, and in Episode 2, the majority opted to cut off the teacher's leg. In response, Telltale adjusted dialogue in later episodes to eliminate any perceived “right” choice, leaving the notion up to the player themself.

The writers of the game had to balance the established characters and timeline from the comic series while allowing for player choice. For instance, in the first episode, players are introduced to Shawn Greene, who is depicted as a walker in the comics. To stay consistent with this, the story was adapted so that Shawn is always bitten. Although players are given the option to save either Shawn or Duck, the outcome is fixed: Shawn is bitten regardless. The choice’s impact instead shifts to Kenny's feelings toward Lee. Telltale also designed characters and choices with player biases in mind. Larry, a harsh character introduced early on, was expected to be disliked by most players. In response, Telltale created a scene in the second episode where Larry’s daughter, Lilly, attempts to redeem him in the player’s eyes, hoping to sway the player's perception of Larry. This worked as intended, with 75% of players choosing to attempt to save Larry when he suffers a heart attack.

Player decisions also shaped the narrative in future episodes. For example, Gary Whitta, writer of the fourth episode, reviewed player decision statistics from previous episodes to guide his writing. One significant decision involved the death of Duck in the third episode, where players chose whether to kill him themselves or let Kenny do it. In the fourth episode, Whitta included a similar scenario where Kenny confronts the death of another boy, forcing players to make a similar choice. A third option, to walk away, would negatively impact the other characters’ view of Lee. By the first act of episode 5, there were 32 variations due to past player choices that they had to write towards. This number of possible scenarios was considered necessary to make the game feel "organic" to the individual player, making the player feel like they weaved their own story within the game instead of just taking a specific route through the choices.

Design

Telltale's art director, Derek Sakai, led the creation of the characters and their expressions. Sakai was told to not use symmetric expressions to help create more human-like expressions and help improve the realism of the game. Sakai drew inspiration from his own daughter to develop the character of Clementine. Jared Emerson-Johnson composed the game's score, which was B.A.F.T.A. Award nominated and released for digital download and on streaming services in 2019, with a special edition set of vinyl lps due to release shortly thereafter.

Multi-platform

The game engine used for The Walking Dead was optimized so as to facilitate the multi-platform nature of the release, which included PCs, gaming consoles and mobile devices, with the aim of minimizing the work in porting. However, the development team still focused on achieving the best control schemes for each platform; in particular, the touchscreen control scheme on mobile devices was based on experience gained during the development of the Back to the Future game. A major challenge through the development of all five episodes was the save game file format, which they continually had to update and fix across platforms, in some cases causing existing save files to become invalid. Unique fixes applied for earlier episodes on one platform would reappear as problems in later ones. Connors stated that for the next series, they would be "a lot more diligent" on the save game issues, using data gathered during the first season development and information on how players would approach the game.

In previous series developed by Telltale for multiple platforms, they had had difficulty in timing releases to reach all players at the same time. One aspect of this was due to issues encountered on the Xbox Live Arcade service for the Xbox 360; for small publishers, like Telltale at the time, they had to arrange with larger publishers to allocate a slot within the Arcade's release schedule several months in advance, making it difficult to coordinate with releases on other platforms. After the success of the Back to the Future and Jurassic Park games, however, Telltale were able to officially achieve a publisher status on Xbox Live, giving them more control of the release schedule. Furthermore, they had designed the game such that the second through fifth episodes would be treated as downloadable content, allowing them to bypass slot scheduling and assuring same-day release on both PCs and consoles.

Marketing and release

The Walking Dead was initially announced as a five-episode series, with releases planned approximately on a monthly basis as digital downloads for Windows, OS X, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Originally slated for late 2011, the release was delayed until April 2012, coinciding with the conclusion of the second season of The Walking Dead television show, allowing the game to benefit from the show's growing popularity.

Following the digital releases, Telltale Games announced a physical disc release for the complete series on December 11, 2012, for the same platforms. A special Collector's Edition was made available exclusively at GameStop in North America, featuring artwork by Charlie Adlard and The Walking Dead: Compendium One, a collection of the first 48 issues of the comic series by Robert Kirkman. After this retail release, some Xbox 360 users reported performance issues due to storage limitations, leading Telltale to offer free digital download codes as compensation. The game was also adapted for handheld consoles. An iOS version was launched in August 2012, followed by a PlayStation Vita port in March 2013. After releasing all five episodes on the App Store, Telltale offered the first episode for free, something they had done in the past, as doing so, according to Dan Connors, "opens the funnel and gets it out to more people who can then convert into the [full] game".

In November 2013, Telltale announced a Game of the Year Edition, available for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, which included the five episodes, the 400 Days DLC, the original score, and a behind-the-scenes feature. A year later, in October 2014, versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released, with a Nintendo Switch version following in August 2018, which also included the 400 Days content. Additionally, a virtual pinball table based on The Walking Dead, developed in collaboration with Zen Studios, was released on August 27, 2014, as downloadable content for Zen Pinball 2 and Pinball FX 2. This pinball adaptation featured unique designs representing key set pieces from all five episodes and included animated models of characters Lee and Clementine.

Reception

Critical reception

Aggregate review scores

Game	Metacritic
Episode 1 – A New Day	(PS3) 84 (PC) 82 (X360) 79
Episode 2 – Starved for Help	(PC) 84 (X360) 84 (PS3) 84
Episode 3 – Long Road Ahead	(X360) 88 (PS3) 87 (PC) 85
Episode 4 – Around Every Corner	(X360) 82 (PS3) 81 (PC) 80
Episode 5 – No Time Left	(PC) 89 (X360) 89 (PS3) 91
Special Episode – 400 Days	(X360) 80 (PS3) 78 (PC) 78
A Telltale Games Series	(X360) 92 (PS3) 94 (PC) 89 (PSVITA) 82

The Walking Dead has received critical acclaim, with reviewers giving praise for the harsh emotional tone, the characters, particularly the empathetic connection established between Lee and Clementine, story and the resemblance to the original comic book, though there was some criticism towards the graphical glitches. The game received over 80 Game of the Year awards and many other awards.

Individual episodes

"Episode 1 – A New Day" received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 85.14% and 84/100, the Xbox 360 version 83.87% and 79/100 and the PC version 83.38% and 82/100. The game received various accolades including the IGN "Editors' Choice", PC Gamer "Editors' Choice", Xbox Editors' Choice Award, and the PlayStation Gold Award.

"Episode 2 – Starved for Help" received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PC version 86.53% and 84/100, the Xbox 360 version 86.26% and 84/100 and the PlayStation 3 version 85.90% and 84/100. The game won the GameSpy E3 2012 award for "Best Adventure Game".

"Episode 3 – Long Road Ahead" received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version 88.47% and 88/100, the PlayStation 3 version 86.11% and 87/100 and the PC version 85.41% and 85/100. IGN's Greg Miller gave it a 9 out of 10, saying "It's a disturbing, depressing and entertaining entry in a journey that's been nothing short of excellent so far." GameSpot gave the game an 8.5, saying "The Walking Dead has passed the midway point of its series of five episodes with every indication that the game will keep getting better right through to its inevitably depressing and unsettling conclusion." MTV also gave it a positive review, saying "Telltale has created a series of wrenching, emotional decisions in the middle of a collection of not-too-hard puzzles in a visually-impressive adaptation of the Robert Kirkman comic series (with some nods to the TV show)."

"Episode 4 – Around Every Corner" received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PC version 84.00% and 80/100, the Xbox 360 version 82.50% and 82/100 and the PlayStation 3 version 78.94% and 81/100.

"Episode 5 – No Time Left" received critical acclaim. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PC version 94.75% and 89/100, the Xbox 360 version 88.15% and 89/100 and the PlayStation 3 version 87.75% and 88/100.

400 Days received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 78.20% and 78/100, the PC version 78.00% and 78/100 and the Xbox 360 version 76.88% and 80/100.

Sales

The Walking Dead was a financial success, aided by the ease of digital distribution. The first episode topped the charts on Xbox Live Arcade for the week of April 30, and remained at the top for two weeks. It also topped the sales charts for both PlayStation Network and Steam for a week. The first episode sold one million copies in 20 days (not including iOS sales), making it Telltale's fastest selling title to date. With the third episode's release, over 3.8 million episodes were delivered to 1.2 million players. As of January 2013, over 8.5 million episodes have been sold across all platforms, representing about $40 million in revenue. Telltale's CEO Dan Connors has stated that the iOS version represented about 25% of their overall sales, the "largest upswing" for any platform, with sale particularly high in November and December 2012, due in part to various sales on the App Store. Upon announcement of the 400 Days content, Telltale reported that over 17 million episodes have been purchased across all platforms worldwide, while by October 2013, at the time of the formal announcement of Season Two, over 21 million episodes have been sold. As of 2016, 28 million episodes have been sold.

Accolades

The Walking Dead has been described as representing a revitalization of the adventure game genre, which had been in decline since the mid-1990s. Telltale have been praised for taking their previous experiences in the genre and expanding on them, whilst also incorporating strong writing and voice acting; Gamasutra and Game Developer named the studio one of the top 10 developers in 2012.

The Walking Dead has garnered many other 2012 "Game of the Year" awards, notably from USA Today, Wired, Complex, GamesRadar and Official Xbox Magazine. The Walking Dead was awarded "Game of the Year", "Best Adapted Video Game", and "Best Downloadable Game" at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards; Melissa Hutchison's role as Clementine was named as "Best Performance By a Human Female", while Dave Fennoy was nominated for "Best Performance by a Human Male". Telltale Games was also named as "Studio of the Year". The game was awarded "Best Downloadable Game" and "Best Character Design" for Lee Everett at the 2012 Inside Gaming Awards. The Walking Dead was Destructoid's 2012 "Game of the Year" and "Best Multi-Platform Game". Digital Trends awarded the game with "Best Writing", "Best Digitally Distributed Game", and "Game of the Year" for 2012. Yahoo! Games' Flan Dering listed The Walking Dead as his "Game of the Year" and "Best Downloadable Game" for 2012. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, The Walking Dead was nominated for eight awards including "Game of the Year", "Outstanding Innovation in Gaming" and "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction"; it ultimately won awards for "Adventure Game of the Year", "Downloadable Game of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Story", and "Outstanding Achievement in Character - Male or Female" for Lee Everett. The Walking Dead won the "Best Narrative" award and received nominations for "Best Downloadable Game" and "Game of the Year" for the 2013 Game Developers Choice Awards. The Walking Dead won the "Story" and "Mobile & Handheld" awards at the 2013 British Academy Video Games Awards, and was nominated for "Best Game", "Game Design", and "Original Music" for the 2013 British Academy Video Games Awards, along with separate "Performance" nominations for Fennoy and Hutchinson for their roles as Lee and Clementine, respectively. In March 2013, the game was nominated for and won several Pocket Gamer Awards categories, including iOS Game of the Year. The Walking Dead: 400 Days won Animation, Interactive at the 2013 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards.

Legacy and sequels

Main articles: The Walking Dead: Season Two, The Walking Dead: Michonne, The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, and The Walking Dead: The Final Season

The first series proved successful, leading Telltale to begin development of a second episodic season. The first episode of the second season was released in late 2013. According to Connors, Telltale incorporates what players liked best from the previous seasons, while considering how and by what means they will continue the story, and include the possibility of tying in more of the characters from the television show.

In February 2013, Whitta suggested that there may also be some material released before the second season to tide players over until then. This was revealed to be the aforementioned 400 Days downloadable content, revealed at the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo following a week of brief Vine video teaser movies posted by Telltale, introducing the five main characters in the added episode. The content uses information from the player's saved game from the first season, and decisions made within 400 Days will continue into season two. The content was made available on the game's existing platforms between July 2 and 11, 2013, while a special bundled edition of the PlayStation Vita, including the full The Walking Dead game and 400 Days content, was released on August 20, 2013. A "Game of the Year" edition of The Walking Dead, including all five episodes and 400 Days, was released for retail for the Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 platforms on November 19, 2013.

A three episode mini-series, The Walking Dead: Michonne, based on the character Michonne, was released in February 2016. The first episode of third season, The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, was released on December 20, 2016, with physical season pass disc released on February 7, 2017. A fourth and final season, The Walking Dead: The Final Season, has since been released in 2018, and concluded in 2019.

External links

• Official website
• Nub098765/TWD at IMDb