Renowned adventure games developer Ron Gilbert believes that with The Walking Dead, Telltale Games has managed to do the impossible and has proven that the adventure genre in an episodic format can still attract people in droves if done right.
“I really like the episodic format,” Gilbert said while speaking with PC Gamer. “I would love to do episodic stuff—I think it’s really neat. It allows you to react to what players are experiencing, much like a TV show can react.”
“I think, with The Walking Dead, it’s kind of proof of the mass marketing of adventure games,” he continued. “Things like Sam & Max are wonderfully fabulous games, but they’re a little nichey in a way. But I think The Walking Dead really proved that there’s a large number of people out there who, if you build a game that’s accessible to them—build an adventure game that’s accessible to them—they will just flock to it.”
Gilbert also said that “people’s time is pulled in so many different ways today with social media, movies at home, and all these other things” and that because of that, an episodic format where each concise episodes offers loads of fun and thrill can broaden the horizons commercially and critically.
The Walking Dead was released by Telltale over the last few weeks in five episodes, and each of them was brilliantly conceived and hence, well received by the critics and fans alike. A second season for the game is also in the works, but there’s no word yet on when that might be out.
You can read our reviews for each of the episodes of The Walking Dead through the links below:
Episode 1 Review | Episode 2 Review | Episode 3 Review | Episode 4 Review | Episode 5 Review