The Walking Dead Game Series Lurches to PSN Tuesday with Pre-Purchase

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The Walking Dead Game Series Lurches to PSN Tuesday with Pre-Purchase

The Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN) by Telltale Games

I’m Jake from Telltale Games and I’m clawing my way onto PlayStation.Blog to bring you up to speed with our latest game series. While some of our previous games like Back to the Future: The Game have been pretty light-hearted, we couldn’t have gone darker than our next project, a five part episodic series based on Robert Kirkman’s Eisner award-winning comic book series, The Walking Dead.

First, the good news: The first episode of The Walking Dead, ‘A New Day,’ will arrive on PSN this Tuesday, April 24th. Each episode will cost $4.99 on the PlayStation Store, and you’ll be able to pre-purchase the entire five-episode season for $19.99 to save $4.99 off of the total season price and nab an exclusive PS3 premium theme (head to the bottom of the post for more details).

Not only is The Walking Dead game darker and more violent than anything the studio has done before, but it also provides a very different gameplay experience compared to our previous games. One major way that the game differs from previous Telltale offerings is that your decisions, through action and dialog that you choose, will have huge repercussions on how you experience the story of the game, but more on that later.

Chances are that you’ve either read the original The Walking Dead comic books (if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?!) or you’ve seen the TV show. One thing you should know from the start is that our game series is based strictly on the world seen in the comics; in fact, the story seen in our game is officially canon to the comic books. That means you’ll find out more about characters and locations seen in the comic book and have a better understanding of their lives at the outset of the zombie apocalypse. Fans of Glenn (seen in the picture above) will get to know his backstory before he heads to Atlanta. And, for a certain character in particular (one who goes on to have a huge impact on Rick Grimes’ life) you’ll get an understanding of what drove them to become the person you’ll see in the comics.

The Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN) by Telltale Games

The Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN) by Telltale GamesThe Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN) by Telltale Games

However, rather than retelling the story of Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes, the game tells the story of a new character – Lee Everett – who exists in the same world and roughly the same geographical location as Rick. In terms of comic book timeline, our story begins when Rick is still in a coma. The decision to tell a new story was made by Telltale and Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead. We felt that re-telling Rick’s story didn’t make much sense because most people will know what would come next. Beyond that, it wouldn’t make sense to create a new story for Rick because we’d be off into new territory, making stuff up that really has nothing to do with The Walking Dead. A new story, with a new lead character, means that we’re free to create new and exciting scenarios and that we can add to the backstory of characters and locations seen in the comics.

You’ll play as Lee Everett (holding the axe in the image above), who has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a man who was “romantically” involved with his wife. Whether Lee killed in cold blood or perhaps in self-defense is something we’ll let you decide.

If you’ve never played a game from Telltale before, you should know that we don’t make open-world shooters; that’s not our thing. While we love and admire games like that, we come from an adventure game background where storytelling and sympathetic characters are the most important thing. It’s for these reasons that Robert Kirkman chose us to make a game based on The Walking Dead. Robert (and Telltale) wanted to use the videogame medium to focus on the characters and the emotions of The Walking Dead universe, allowing players to experience the horror and tension of the walker-infested world. It’s a much more personal experience than many other zombie-based games have offered. Taking down a gigantic zombie horde with ridiculous firepower is not what The Walking Dead is about. In fact, we want you to be repulsed by the true horror of killing a walker. The zombies in our game are not just fleshy targets for your high-powered weapon, and you might be forced to finish someone who was a friend or a relative before they turned. On top of that, resources in our world are limited and noise attracts the wrong kind of attention, so you’ll have to get up close and use hand tools and weapons. We want people who think they’re desensitized to zombie violence to find that, in truth, they’re not.

The Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN) by Telltale GamesThe Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN) by Telltale Games

Unlike any other previous Telltale game, The Walking Dead tailors the story based on the decisions that you make. Your decisions or actions might have an effect in the episode you’re playing or might affect the entire season. You could answer a question in a certain way and have a character become suspicious of your motives, or you could be forced to choose who to save when two people are in mortal peril but only one can be yanked back from the zombie horde. Your decisions will stay with you throughout the series, and their repercussions could mean that you and a friend have a very different game experience. Writing for a game with content that “branches” in this way certainly has its challenges. Instead of a normal linear script, we have to take into account each possible branch and how it affects the game you’ll play. It’ll be fun to backtrack when playing to see what would happen if you’d made a different decision and our save system supports that with our rewind feature.

Beyond the huge impact of choice and the tailored experience, we’re giving players full control of Lee to explore the environment and think their way through both action sequences and survival-oriented puzzle arcs that are signature to a Telltale gaming experience. Unlike Monkey Island style games, we won’t be ‘using the pie on the gerbil to open the trapdoor’ or anything remotely comedic or illogical; instead, we’ve implemented much more serious concepts that are both logical and completely in-keeping with figuring out how to survive in a zombie apocalypse.

Given that this game is episodic, players can expect a summer-long continuing story of adventure horror that will begin with our first episode ‘A New Day’, followed by four additional episodes, each landing about each month after the previous one. Each episode will cost $4.99 on the PlayStation Store – but fans can also pre-purchase the entire five episode season for $19.99 to save $4.99 off of the total season price and nab an exclusive PlayStation 3 premium theme (images below).

The Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN): PS3 Dynamic Theme

The Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN): PS3 Dynamic ThemeThe Walking Dead for PS3 (PSN): PS3 Dynamic Theme

There’s much more to talk about, and aside from more frequent posts here on the PlayStation Blog, fans can also stay tuned to our site or our Facebook page for episodes of ‘Playing Dead,’ a web series dedicated to covering the production of The Walking Dead, with special guests including Robert Kirkman and the writer of episode four, Gary Whitta (whom you might recognize as the screenwriter of post-apocalyptic story The Book of Eli).

Working with Robert, Gary and everyone involved has been awesome, and as a fan, it’s completely unreal to work on hugely collaborative projects like this.

We can’t wait for you to play the game and we aim to bring you news and updates all summer long. Look for me here again, or with any luck… maybe on an upcoming Official PlayStation Blogcast! If you have any questions or comments – feel free to fire away in the section below.

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72 Comments

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  • Cool! I didn’t know about this until the recent issue of Game Informer, but it was enough to make me want it! I think I’ll be in for this one :]

  • Any PS+ sale/exclusive stuff or nah?

  • Didnt like it very much.
    Just my opinion ;)

  • Awesome, cant wait, this is gonna be a really kewl game!!

    Im in the middle of watching season 2! This will add to the experience.

  • horrible game imo, but i guess the games of the devs from this company are all the same.

  • I’m looking forward to it! I won’t be able to purchase the full package until May 3rd, so I hope the pre-purchase deal isn’t terribly limited, time-wise.

  • OMG! I MUST HAVE THIS! I reeeeeeally hope theres going to be a PS+ discount or even better… freebies!

  • just recently saw this game and im looking forward to it! ill definitely download it tomorrow!

  • Demo. After Jurassic Park, we’re going to need a demo.

  • i am pleased

  • @5 How can you make that comment without trying it out (i’m not suggesting that you do of course).

    Personally, i’m a huge fan of the comic and of the world of “The Walking Dead” so to be interacting with the characters in that world is what sold me.

  • Hurry up and Take My MONEY!!

  • As long as the game doesn’t have any real terrible bugs, this might be interesting- but personally. I would prefer a single title rather than episodes.
    Never been a fan of the episodic format as the continuation sometimes might fall upon how well the previous eps did ( Alan Wake) or the price of the episodes end up prohibitive ( Forbidden Call of the Siren : New Translation)- which has been the same price since it dropped and we never saw a Disc release here in the States.

    Pardon the rambling, but the price seems good and I like the writers on staff at TTG- If I have cash left over I’ll consider this.

  • When will game developers learn…

    We don’t want a zombie game where we are overpowered and can mow down all the zombies with ease.

    We ALSO don’t want a game where the engine holds our hand the entire way (quick time events).

    We want a god damn open world survival with limited ammo/weapons and horror. Why. WHY has this NEVER BEEN DONE?!?!?!?!?!

  • @14 Ummm…Dead Island…

  • Bahh seems ok most zombie games r the same thing we need a zombie that transforms into sara j parker i need a horse apocalypse.

  • Must buy!

  • I just hope i dont pay for all these episodes like i did back to the future just to see it given away for free later thats some bs

  • I think a sweet ZOMBIE FALLOUT game from Bethesda would be awesome, but will definitely check this out

  • Oh, cool, another zombie game. And this one is based on a terrible, overrated television show, which was in turn based on a mediocre comic that coasted on its subject matter and zombie vogue.

  • Oh, and even better, they’re trying the episodic release business model again to optimize their profits for the content.

  • @5 & 14, immature comments… wow guys, judge the game after it’s released & TT makes adventure titles- Dead Island & the L4D series (love that game) are availble if you need an FPS fix.

    I appreciate the discount, but I wish the included theme’s dynamic & not static. Put me down for pre-ordering tomorrow!

  • @20 & 21, fall off the bike today? Chill out, the show has some of the highest Neilson (sp) ratings & the comic is doing well.

    TT has a history for releasing episodic content which Valve also did for the HL series… what on Earth are you blabbering about?

    Take your meds!

  • Awesome! I’m a huuuge fan of the show. Can’t wait to check out the game.

  • I’d rather have a Dynamic theme

  • Thanks for stopping in Jake and filling us in on the release. I do have a question, however, I’m unsure you can answer right now. It seems some of Telltale’s releases have seen movement over to retail disc. I owned Back to the Future as a download season, but loved it so much I bought the disc release when it came out as well (also gained some HDD space as a result of the purchase). Now, I’m unsure what the logistics are behind this (I still don’t understand why Jurassic Park was only released on disc to that other console), but can we expect a disc release for Walking Dead at some point in the future?

    • Hey SarshelYam, we haven’t announced any plans for a disc release of the Walking Dead, but as you pointed out, many of our games end up in disc form at some point down the line, so who knows. For now, though, we’re focusing on finishing up the rest of the season for its release on PSN.

  • Not a chance that I’ll be dropping a dime on this, broseph. Your company massively butchered the last game you released on PS3. The lag was unbearable and made my game unable to be completed. Lag always happened at the exact moment when I needed to press a button to survive. We made it clear that it was an issue on your forums, but your company chose to leave it unresolved. I hope that this game does terribly as a result of your poor support of the customer after he gives you their money. Then, either your company will die or you all will realize that it’s in your best interests to make the customer happy, since it affects the release of ALL of your games.

  • this looks good, i will def be picking this up. just not on there release dates. i like a full game, i will wait months untill every episode is released, then purchase all them at once and enjoy many hours after the other right then and there. looks good

  • This looks like an intense series! I like the episodic format for this, but have a question: what if I play a certain way, then replay the episode a different way while waiting for the next episode? Does one save file just get overwritten for continuity?
    Can we get some The Walking Dead PSN avatars?

  • Looks cool, but I’d be interested in a demo first.

  • I’m going to hold off buying this until I see some metacritic review scores.

    And then I’ll wait a while longer to make sure those review scores were not placed there by Telltale employees (again).

    I’m sorry Telltale, but you broke a lot of people’s trust with that Jurassic Park stunt you pulled.

    Shame.

  • @ 14.
    Zombie Games stopped being good more than a decade ago my friend. Where were you? (
    If you want a good zombie game ,pick up Forbidden Call of the Siren, Resident Evil Outbreak 1 & 2 (Capcom doesn’t remake two of the best RE games in existence?), if you have a 360, play Dead Rising 1.

    If you play games on your computer , Rogue Survivor & Survival Crisis Z. Avoid stuff like Killing Floor(Poorly made arena shooter with an fanbase full of lying idiots) , Dead Horde ( Blatant Dead Nation Clone)

    As for your statement, it has been done before. Try our Survival Crisis Z. Really. You won’t regret it. I admit it is hard to get into at first but after a while ,it will either grow on you until you beat it or you’ll just play arcade mode until you’re done with it.

    Only time will tell if we will ever have another great Zombie game. This might be it. This might not be it.
    I gotta play it first.

  • @ 15.
    Dead Island was a buggy piece of garbage out of the box. It was Borderlands with less content and even more boring and pointless & the only game that matches how buggy it is was Fallout 3. Only God and the Almighty Dollar knows how such terrible games are getting good reviews this generation.
    If these games were released during the PS2 era they would have flopped like the wingless turds they were.
    Alas gamers this generation have no idea what good games are.

    @19.
    Please. No. Bethesda is possibly one of the worst developers in existence. Do they need any more of a reason to release a game with enemies with worse AI than usual?
    I would prefer if people not mention Bethseda when people are talking about developers who actually test their games .

    Pardon my double posts.

  • @33 Whatever bugs Dead Island had ‘out of the box’ have long since been resolved and I had nothing but an extremely enjoyable experience with it. That in itself makes it a good game.

  • Pass. shame I was so excited too. Episodic games=fail for me. Damn, bummed

  • Will we also be able to play this on the PS Vita? I think we need more games like these on the Vita.

  • Im not sure about everyone else but Nazi Zombie on Black ops is one of the few games were you can use skill to get over on the game and not just watch screen play walk you through it all. If anyone is interested i have a youtube page dedicated to zombies @ Just type ZOMBIEPRONYC in youtube.

  • With Starhawk releasing soon, i was hoping The Walking Dead wouldn’t be more than $15! I know it’ll have a cliffhanger of sorts too. So there better be a part 2.

  • As a big fan of the Back to the Future series, and the games created by TT… I am most definitely looking forward to this offering.

    Definitely very anxious to see how dark they go with this franchise. Has great potential, and adds to the universe that is The Walking Dead.

    This is almost a no brainer for fans of both the series AND TT… unless you’re a zombie. Then you pretty much don’t have a functional brain.

  • Very cool, huge fan of the TWD universe.

    Sad the theme isn’t dynamic.

  • From that day they can buy the full version of the walking dead???????????

  • I was actually quite excited about hearing they were making a game for The Walking Dead. Now I’ve realized where the game is coming from and I’m honestly going to have to pass. I thought about getting Back to the Future and the Jurassic Park games this company released, but I have yet to hear a decent thing about either game. I rather not ruin any of the three stories by playing a game I find out I can’t stand.

  • BTTF was just so-so, but not to sound rude, Jurassic Park was just terrible, and I love Jurassic Park themed stuff.
    I’m wary about anything you guys release now, especially when it sort of just materializes now.

    Please release a demo or else I won’t be buying.

  • @32

    Killing Floor doesn’t suck. I have a hard time taking your opinion seriously after saying that.

  • When do we get Sam and Max Season One?

  • Will the PS Plus offer that came with Jurassic Park happen with the Walking Dead Game? It would give me great incentive to purchase a year of PS Plus… just saying. :)

  • I can’t wait for this game to tank and Sony shoves it down our throats as a freebie for Plus members. This company has a horrible track record and piss poor respect for their customers. The main reason why they do episodes for games is to maximize profits on a game that is under par for your local bargain bin. They should have been ran outta town for that whole JP thing. And to tell you the truth, I felt like I was ripped off for the BTTF game; and I received it free through Plus!

  • Cant wait, and i just want to say im very glad this game is following the Comic. Im sorry and while i enjoy the TV show, it is nothing like the comic and in my eyes just bland and boring. The Show counterparts are nothing like their comic counterparts. Show drags on and on about irrelevant/boring topics. But im just glad we finally got Michonne, and the prison, and read that David Morrissey is playing the Governor. so i think Season 3 will be much better than the slow season two.

    Back on topic again i cannot wait for this. As a fan of the series we finally get a game of this and ill be buying this on just about every system i own!

  • the picture frame theme is sweet!

    gotta get some Jon Bernthal as Shane Walsh DLC.

    I wanna see him just like on the amc site game dead reckoning… what he had to go through during the start of the whole outbreak plz get it done!?!?

  • I’m interested in the game, but apprehensive about making a purchase. Any plans to release a demo?

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