What We’d Like To See In the Next Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead Game

With its episodic adventure series The Walking Dead, Telltale Games has done the unthinkable – it’s managed to tell an original story arc in Robert Kirkman’s comic world that stands out on its own accord, between the riveting choices you must make for survival and the harrowing fallout that comes from both the horrifying walkers and the general nature of a desperate humanity.  It’s truly surreal, and one of last year’s best games.

How can Telltale Games top it?  They’ve already vowed to continue the story with a second season, and though they haven’t revealed just how it will unfold, that didn’t stop us from putting together a wish list of stuff that we want to see in the second go-around.

Spoilers ahead, about on the same level as our Spoiler Alert article.

The return of Clementine

After seeing what poor Clementine went through by the end of the fifth episode of the first season – having to either kill Lee following his being bitten by a walker, or simply walk away as he transformed into one – it’d be kind of sad if we didn’t see her return in some capacity for the second game.  Maybe it could take place a few years down the road, showing how she’s grown from a damaged young child to a tough, no-nonsense woman, along the same lines as Daryl from the TV show.  Obviously we’ll see a new character step up to replace Lee, but the story just wouldn’t be the same without Clementine, honestly.

Less Quick-Time Events, More Real Time Control

The Walking Dead isn’t so much an action game as it is an adventure, but it does have action elements.  However, most of them revolve around button mashing, hitting a certain function so many times to avoid getting eaten by a zombie.  There’s nothing wrong with this, but the quick-time event thing has really been done to death, and it’s time to come up with some new ideas for the controls.  Not to say that we want a first-person shooter – that’s pretty much what Activision is doing with the forthcoming The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, but maybe more sequences involving real-time control, and perhaps even the ability to pull out a melee weapon from time to time to bury in a walker’s head.  Just an idea…

More Character Involvement

One of the bigger aspects of The Walking Dead is how you form relationships with characters.  Sometimes they’ll share a bond with you depending on what decisions you make; other times, they’ll oppose you in the worst way possible, either disagreeing with what you said in a story or turning against them in favor of a fellow survivor.  Telltale Games should definitely continue this trend, perhaps even introducing the possibility of forming a closer relationship with a character.  True, The Walking Dead isn’t a love story per se, but just think about how much of a loss you’d feel if a loved one succumbed to a group of walkers.  It could definitely push the emotional heights of the game to a new level.

Even More Endings

The original Walking Dead game series came to an end that didn’t really change too much, no matter which route we took, as Clementine eventually parted from Lee as he died.  With the sequel, Telltale Games might consider throwing in a few more possibilities for the main characters to experience, depending on their choices.  Despite the controversy that would come from losing one of the main characters (like, for instance, Clementine), that feeling of “no one is safe” would sink in, making you think even deeper about every choice you make in the game.  Again, just a thought…

Different Walker Types

The original Walking Dead had its fair share of creepy walkers to watch out for, but for the second season, Telltale Games can easily mix up variety a little bit.  How about throwing in a few more child walkers, like the one we saw in the debut episode of the TV show?  For that matter, we could use more “speedy zombies”, lurching at you and giving you even less time to think.  Variety is the spice of life, after all.  Even in death.

More TV Star Cameos

Finally, we know that Telltale Games is trying to tell a story separate from the TV show, but doesn’t mean they can’t throw in characters from that universe, as they’ve proven with the first season.  For the second, it’d be great to see a few more familiar faces – we don’t mean the truly popular ones, like Merle and Daryl (who will be in Survival Instinct anyway), but maybe more of the fan favorites – even the dead ones could stop by just to provide a shock.

Look for more information on the second season of The Walking Dead as Telltale pushes forward in its development.  We can’t wait.