*This article will contain spoilers for Season 1 of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead*
The recent news that Telltale Games is in the process of shutting down isn’t becoming any easier to stomach. From The Wolf Among Us to Tales from the Borderlands, Telltale changed the way in which contemporary games are made. Despite the fact that The Walking Dead wasn’t Telltale’s first title, it was the first one to resemble what could now be described as a “Telltale Game.”
I played The Walking Dead‘s first season once, and I’ll likely never play it again. Sure, some of the choices I made came back to bite me, but it would simply be too traumatic to consciously undertake such an emotional journey again, even if it meant finishing the game with a better outcome. To tell you the truth, I also haven’t played the later seasons. I never will, either. I have no interest in playing past where the first series ended the first time I played it. I’m not going to pretend that the later games aren’t fantastic?I’m sure that they are. Some friends of mine have told me so. However, that first season left its mark on me. For me, the series ended when Lee locked those handcuffs to that bar. That’s not what I’m here to talk about, though.
The Walking Dead‘s first season is a game that’s entirely founded upon the player’s choices. Lots of RPGs offer their players dialogue options?in Skyrim, a play...