The Walking Dead: A New Frontier – Review

Back in December The Walking Dead: A New Frontier was released on Steam. We were lucky to get our hands on a review copy form this Telltale series, and this is wat we think about the game …

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier

Episodes 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier got released on the 20th of december on Steam, XBox and PS4. These 2 seasons are part of the 5 season series which the folks at Telltale Games will bring out and continues the adventures of Clementine (and a few other characters).

Story

Well, we don’t want to spoil every detail of the story, but we can tell you that Clementine is back! The story also has a few new characters including Javier and his family, and some familiar ‘faces’ from the actual TV Series as well.

Of course The Walking Dead; A New Frontier wouldn’t be a Telltale Series game if the game didn’t evolve around the story and the choices you make.

Gameplay

Personally, I had never played the previous The Walking Dead episodes in the Telltale Series, so I didn’t know what to expect. Pretty soon it was obvious though that I would have to choose my own path, and react accordingly to things happening in the story. After all … choices you make at the start of an episode might shape the story for you later on!

The actual gameplay is pretty easy … let the story evolve, choose your path, search some areas, shoot a few baddies and whack some muertos or zombies along the road. We did try to replay a few chapters of episode one and pick some other choices just to see what influence it had on the story. It is strange to see that it doesn’t really matter which choices Javier Garcia (the main character) takes, the folks at Telltale Games already had it all planned out 🙂

As far as we could see … every episode is divided in about 6 chapters and each chapter could take you anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to play through. As a result … the average play duration for an episode is about 60 to 90 minutes. Since we have 2 episodes available at launch, you might be looking at about 3 hours of playtime.

Graphics & Sound

Ok … we have to admit … this probably isn’t the most graphically intensive game, and you probably won’t be caught off guard by how realistic the world looks at sunset. But still … the whole look and feel of the game is what you would expect from The Walking Dead series. Things look cartoony, but hey … that’s what makes this game so good!

The only issue I sometimes had was related to sound. At some points in the game it was pretty clear that the narrative was recorded in different sessions. Depending on the choices you made the responses you character gives to a certain conversation sounded a lot different than the first part of a conversation. It wasn’t all that bad, all things considered, but in some instances it was clearly noticeable.

Both graphics and sound really contribute nicely to the overall look and feel of the game and give The Walking Dead: A New Frontier its very own atmosphere.

Our Opinion

I personally quite like The Walking Dead: A New Frontier and I see myself becoming a big fan of these Telltales Games. After all … not a lot can go wrong while playing the game. Yes … you can get scared by some creepy sounds, get shot, or die due to a zombie bite, but nothing you can’t fix in another 10 minute play session.

Of course, this also means the game is quite predictable. Yes … people will get bitten and wil turn, you will see muerto’s / zombies and try to escape from them, unexpected things will happen, people will die, and safe places won’t be all that safe after a while.

And yet … replaying the game with some other choices might give another twist to the story and how everything evolves!

I quite liked the game, and as mentioned, I see myself becoming a fan of The Telltale Series pretty fast. The Walkind Dead: A New Frontier is the type of game you can launch for 10 to 20 minutes just to relax after a long stressful day at work!

SPOILER !!! Playthrough Videos!!!

We did play through the first two episodes and recorded it all. In case you have no problem with spoilers, feel free to take a look at our play through!