Telltale Confirms Walking Dead Game

Last night in San Francisco, Telltale Games announced that it was working on a game based on the zombie comic The Walking Dead. Aside from that announcement, however, details were scarce. No screens were shown and no gameplay elements were discussed. Telltale assured us that more information would be coming from San Diego Comic-Con in July, but that's quite a while from now. I spoke to a few people from both the comic and game sides of the collaboration and got a few more details on the project.

I tried to pry out a little more information out of Sean Vanaman, the game's writer and lead designer, and got perhaps the best, noncommittal response of all time. When I asked if there would be shooting segments in the game, similar to Telltale's porridge versus bees sequences in Wallace & Gromit's Fight of the Bumblebees episode, he gave the following response: "It would not be completely inconceivable that a bullet would travel through the air and into the body of a dead or undead or living creature. Not inconceivable." When I tried to pry out whether or not such sequences would be featured in gameplay, he deadpanned, "You will be playing a video game when that happens. We will not cut to a Bink prerendered video." OK then.

Kidding aside, after talking to Vanaman and the other guys at Telltale, it's clear that they're passionate about making sure that the Walking Dead isn't just another zombie game.

"Basically, Telltale are huge fans of the comic book," says Sina Grace, editor of The Walking Dead comics. "They wanted to make something that is exciting for fans and that adds more to the experience, and just isn’t a zombie shooter game that says “The Walking Dead” on top of it. This is the same product, the same story about people surviving this mass apocalypse and trying to understand their own humanity."

“The thing that’s important to us is that when you boot it up, it makes you feel like you’re playing a Walking Dead game – from the look, and the tone, and the gameplay, and the choices you’re making, and the things that are happening to you moment to moment," says Vanaman. "It needs to feel like a Walking Dead game."

"Back to the Future is a good example [of what we’re shooting for]," says telltale's Jake Rodkin. "It doesn’t look exactly like the films, but when you play it and Marty gets in the DeLorean and the music builds up, you get the same emotional feeling that you get from Back to the Future. That’s not to say that it’s going to look just like the comic or the show."

"If you don’t start five minutes of the game and feel like you’re in the Walking Dead universe, then we probably did something wrong," adds Vanaman. "I think we have a track record as a company of doing it right."

The Walking Dead is a continuing series of comics that follows human survivors following a worldwide zombie outbreak. It was recently adapted for television by AMC and its six-episode run was a surprise hit for the cable network.