This review contains spoilers
I'm including my own spoiler warning here, just to be 100% safe. This has ending spoilers.
If I were to say that this is the only Walking Dead media I’ve ever viewed, what would you anticipate that I would say in the review? One guess could be that since the setting was completely fresh, the story would be as impactful as it could possibly be. Another guess could be just the opposite, that without the depth and wordbuilding afforded by its predecessors, it wouldn’t feel nearly as dramatic as it should. No matter which way a player in my shoes ended up actually feeling, it’s impossible to get away from the influence of these personal or cultural reference factors. So, while I haven’t read The Walking Dead or seen its TV adaptation, I can’t help but feel like my experience with the game was tainted by similar reference points regardless.
If there’s one recurring motif in the post-apocalyptic genre, it’s the gulf between pragmatic and moral decision making. Choosing to save someone’s life when they might betray you, stealing food, leaving people to die so you can escape, these are the bread and butter of apocalypse dilemmas. However, making decisions that would jeopardize your survival aren’t impactful in the context of an episodic story with no narrative failure state. Having played other episodic games and adventure games in general, I knew that the story would always take priority over the minutiae of player decisions, and that a generous latitude would always be granted in favor of a smooth narrative. For example, if you decide not to steal a sweater for Clementine, the result would never be that she’ll freeze to death and end the game, but that there might be some complaints of being cold later on. However, in the case of The Walking Dead, Clem would never actually tell you to do something immoral, and this is where I feel like she’s emblematic of the game’s problems. She’s the only character Lee really has a reason to care for, she unerringly advocates for moral choices, and as previously established, there’s no benefit in going for the more pragmatic choices. What you’re left with is a human incarnation of the game’s moral compass, scolding you for choices that would be perfectly reasonable outside the context of a story where immorality doesn’t have actual benefits. This all comes to a head with the game’s finale, where Clementine is abducted by someone who claims they’ll be a better surrogate parent than you. He attempts to throw all your selfish decisions in your face, but the lack of benefits to pragmatism and the endless moral signposting will probably make this confrontation fall entirely on its face; he will have no ammo to use against you. Not only that, but in an example of the unshakable course of the narrative rearing its head, even the immoral version of Lee will still be the better choice for Clementine, thanks to the odd decision of making this villain an unhinged psychopath carrying his wife’s zombie head in a bag. Even the moment of Lee’s final judgement, the moment all your decisions have built up to, has to be stripped of consequence so that Lee can still be seen in a positive enough light for the final scene with Clementine to function.
Remember though, this damage to the tension and weight of the narrative is mostly flowing from the knowledge of genre reference points. What if I had no clue that episodic games worked the way they do, and instead functioned like choose-your-own-adventure novels where you could fail at any time? What if The Walking Dead actually did have a history of killing characters people thought were unassailable, and actually would kill a character like Clementine? For all I know, maybe it already does, and this knowledge deepened the drama for series fans. With that level of uncertainty, even if the story was still just as linear, the weight of each decision would be strong enough to support the drama of the narrative. However, it’s not like The Walking Dead is alone in wrestling with the cultural context of its release, it affects every piece of media that will ever exist. I understand that there’s a combination of influence factors that would make it engaging for people, but a failure to move beyond, or at least plan around, the predictability and limitations of its chosen format is a failure nonetheless.
If I were to say that this is the only Walking Dead media I’ve ever viewed, what would you anticipate that I would say in the review? One guess could be that since the setting was completely fresh, the story would be as impactful as it could possibly be. Another guess could be just the opposite, that without the depth and wordbuilding afforded by its predecessors, it wouldn’t feel nearly as dramatic as it should. No matter which way a player in my shoes ended up actually feeling, it’s impossible to get away from the influence of these personal or cultural reference factors. So, while I haven’t read The Walking Dead or seen its TV adaptation, I can’t help but feel like my experience with the game was tainted by similar reference points regardless.
If there’s one recurring motif in the post-apocalyptic genre, it’s the gulf between pragmatic and moral decision making. Choosing to save someone’s life when they might betray you, stealing food, leaving people to die so you can escape, these are the bread and butter of apocalypse dilemmas. However, making decisions that would jeopardize your survival aren’t impactful in the context of an episodic story with no narrative failure state. Having played other episodic games and adventure games in general, I knew that the story would always take priority over the minutiae of player decisions, and that a generous latitude would always be granted in favor of a smooth narrative. For example, if you decide not to steal a sweater for Clementine, the result would never be that she’ll freeze to death and end the game, but that there might be some complaints of being cold later on. However, in the case of The Walking Dead, Clem would never actually tell you to do something immoral, and this is where I feel like she’s emblematic of the game’s problems. She’s the only character Lee really has a reason to care for, she unerringly advocates for moral choices, and as previously established, there’s no benefit in going for the more pragmatic choices. What you’re left with is a human incarnation of the game’s moral compass, scolding you for choices that would be perfectly reasonable outside the context of a story where immorality doesn’t have actual benefits. This all comes to a head with the game’s finale, where Clementine is abducted by someone who claims they’ll be a better surrogate parent than you. He attempts to throw all your selfish decisions in your face, but the lack of benefits to pragmatism and the endless moral signposting will probably make this confrontation fall entirely on its face; he will have no ammo to use against you. Not only that, but in an example of the unshakable course of the narrative rearing its head, even the immoral version of Lee will still be the better choice for Clementine, thanks to the odd decision of making this villain an unhinged psychopath carrying his wife’s zombie head in a bag. Even the moment of Lee’s final judgement, the moment all your decisions have built up to, has to be stripped of consequence so that Lee can still be seen in a positive enough light for the final scene with Clementine to function.
Remember though, this damage to the tension and weight of the narrative is mostly flowing from the knowledge of genre reference points. What if I had no clue that episodic games worked the way they do, and instead functioned like choose-your-own-adventure novels where you could fail at any time? What if The Walking Dead actually did have a history of killing characters people thought were unassailable, and actually would kill a character like Clementine? For all I know, maybe it already does, and this knowledge deepened the drama for series fans. With that level of uncertainty, even if the story was still just as linear, the weight of each decision would be strong enough to support the drama of the narrative. However, it’s not like The Walking Dead is alone in wrestling with the cultural context of its release, it affects every piece of media that will ever exist. I understand that there’s a combination of influence factors that would make it engaging for people, but a failure to move beyond, or at least plan around, the predictability and limitations of its chosen format is a failure nonetheless.