Summary
The Walking Deadwas arguably in its prime when it had a distilled cast of characters between Shane, Dale, and Glenn’s group in Atlanta and the Greene family at the farm. This was a much simpler time in the show between seasons one and two when Rick and everyone else were beginning to understand the nature of the apocalypse and the world wasn’t quite as large yet. The biggest threat to the group was Shane, if not the horde of undead that could appear at any moment, but many decisions were laid at the characters’ feet that will hopefully be interesting to explore inThe Walking Dead Destinies.
The Walking Dead Destiniesallows fans to essentially rewrite the show, though it’s unclear how many decisions they’ll actually be able to make. There are obvious turning points within each season that would need to be addressed with player choice involved if it is to be a satisfying and complete experience, even if each decision is made with Rick as the protagonist in an over-the-shoulder perspective. Choosing tokeep Shane alive inThe Walking Dead Destiniesis one such choice, but the show’s second season has another pivotal decision that GameMill needs to offer players freely.
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BecauseThe Walking Dead Destiniesplayers will almost assuredly be fans of the show already, they’ll be going into the game with at least a few ideas of scenarios and events that they’d like to see changed. This is whatThe Walking Dead Destiniesis predicated on entirely since such a premise for a game wouldn’t work for a show that didn’t have a beloved fanbase or at least one that couldn’t comprehend another path for its characters.
Many fans would probably like torewrite Glenn and Abraham’s mutually gory fate at the hands of Negan, for instance, though that is far removed fromThe Walking Dead Destinies, which only comprises seasons one through four. Still, these first four seasons have a lot on their plate for fans to mull over and hopefully rewrite, and that is whereThe Walking Dead Destiniesneeds to integrate unpredictability.
Players should be allowed to free Merle from the rooftop before the group abandons him there, for example, or even choose not to leave the CDC and surrender to Jenner’s decided-upon fate. Likewise,fans watchingThe Walking Deadwhen it airedprobably had questions regarding Herschel’s farm in season two, and should hopefully be able to go looking for answers themselves inDestinies.
In particular, thelocked barn at the Greene family farmis intentionally obscured in season two as Rick and his group attempt to settle in despite Herschel’s wishes. Like anywhere Rick and company go, they bring trouble along with them and mayhem eventually ensues, but not before the mystery of the barn is solved piecemeal.
Characters begin gradually finding out that the Greenes keep walkers restrained within the barn and that comes to a head when Shane learns about it, leading him and the others to wipe all its undead inhabitants out. This is how the group learns what happened to Sophia, and is a considerable step in Herschel becoming more of a realist in terms of how he and his family perceive the walkers. On a cold viewing, it is fun to predict why the barn may be locked up, and because it’s not learned why until much later that question becomes more intriguing.
But if players have free will inDestinies, it would be terrific if they could choose to instantly head over to the barn and expose the Greenes. Rather, if fans side with Herschel in this debate, maybe they could decide not to open it at all, which would also be a big diversion from what Shane wanted. Either way, choices like this willmake or breakThe Walking Dead Destinies’ experience.
The Walking Dead Destiniesis set to release on November 14 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
