Telltale’s The Walking Dead Named One Of The Best Games of The Decade

According to multiple outlets, Telltale’s The Walking Dead has been named one of the best video games of the decade! We’re flattered to be included among huge titles like “The Last of Us,” “Dark Souls,” “Breath of the Wild,” and others. Congratulations to all who were involved in the creation and distribution of the games! We’ll let the reviewers explain why we were included with some of this decade’s greats:

Polygon: The 100 Best Games of The Decade

“Telltale was formed in 2004, with the aim of creating episodic games that would be eagerly awaited by fans. The company’s brief flowering came and went with its biggest success, The Walking Dead, between 2012 and 2018.

The first season was its biggest hit, telling the story of a man (rare in games, an African-American lead) who seeks to save a young girl from a zombie apocalypse. During the game, players solve simple puzzles while making difficult moral choices that affect the story.

The Walking Dead finished its first season with a dramatic high that left many players in a state of emotional turmoil…”

– Colin Campbell (Full Article Here)

EDGE UK: Games of the Decade

“…For once, player choices were no longer about pushing a character along a binary good/evil scale. From the outset, it was clear Lee was no paragon; the decisions placed in front of him often felt like picking between two renegade options, with even the lesser of two evils often resulting in a grisly fate from someone. The knotty ambiguities of Robert Kirkman’s fiction lent themselves beautifully to interactive drama: if the comic book asked provocative moral questions of its readers, here players could supply their own answers…

…Yet if the studio’s tale is a cautionary one, the legacy of its finest game is assured. Here was proof of an audience ready for mature storytelling, one that could happily accept a lack of mechanical complexity in favour of a well-written narrative they could shape. The likes of Life is Strange, Firewatch, and Oxenfree – the latter two directed by Telltale alumni – are testament The Walking Dead‘s zombie-like endurance, and a reminder that developers and players alike will indeed remember it.”

– EGDE Issue #200, Print

AV Club: The Most Important Games of the 2010s

“Game developers have been hunting the ideal of “playable movies” since the days when Dana Plato was still trying to stay out of the Night Trap, often to disastrous, embarrassing, and pixelated effect. That shifted in 2012, though, when Telltale Games—formerly known for reviving beloved adventure game franchises like Monkey Island and Sam & Max, and currently known for the garbage fire of bad labor practices it eventually devolved into—released a licensed zombie game that managed to make watching its story as gripping as playing it.

Prefacing the rise of streamer culture—and the move by more and more people toward experiencing games content by sitting back and simply watching it, instead of playing along—Telltale’s The Walking Dead pioneered a style of gameplay where asking the right question was as important as twitch reflexes, and where shouting your opinion from the couch could be as important a contribution as pulling a trigger.

It doesn’t matter that many—most, really—of the choices you were making didn’t actually matter. (No matter how many “Clementine will remember you said that”s the game threw in your way.) The Walking Dead expertly milked the illusion for all it was worth, bringing the dream of interactive film closer to fruition that it had ever been before.”

– William Hughes (Full Article Here)

Paste: The 100 Best Videogames of the 2010s

“Telltale’s The Walking Dead is one of the best licensed games of all time because of the way it re-creates the pacing and feel of the comic series. It’s heavy on character interaction and suspense, like the comic and show, and light on puzzles and item hunting.

Action sequences are spread out; this is not Left 4 Dead or Dead Island but a character-driven game with action elements only added in when completely necessary. Think of The Walking Dead as Maniac Mansion and a poor man’s version of Heavy Rain put into a blender containing 10 or 15 issues of Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s comic—a nice mix, especially for the episode price of $4.99.”

— Keith Veronese (Full Article Here)

LAD Bible: GAMINGBible’s Greatest Games of the Decade

“Most zombie games before The Walking Dead focused on the action of an undead outbreak – but Telltale put story at the centre of this critical and commercial hit. The team showed how invested you could become in the lives of these characters, simply by talking with them and making choices, from seemingly trivial either-or decisions to high-tension instances of life or death.

All of this built to a heartbreaking finale, solidifying Lee Everett and Clementine as two of the best characters in gaming.”

– Julian Benson (Full Article Here)

You can buy the Definitive Edition of Telltale’s The Walking Dead here and pre-order the vinyl soundtrack here! Also, let us know in the comments where YOU would rank Telltale’s The Walking Dead in a Best Games of the Decade list.