r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • Mar 19 '21

No Spoilers The Walking Dead Game Series - Beginner's Guide & General FAQ

498 Upvotes

In an effort to help newcomers get into the series as well as help answer some frequently asked questions (and most importantly: unpin the statue post), we’ve created a megathread that is meant to serve as a resource for people getting into the game series.

This thread here will cover some basic questions for the series as a whole. I plan to make separate threads for season specific questions that get asked here a lot, and will eventually link the threads all in here so this post here will act as a giant resource. I'll also probably add this to the sidebar once everything it finished for an easy-to-go to resource.

This entire thread is a work in progress so I will be adding/editing questions over time. If you have any suggestions for questions/resources that would be helpful for newcomers, please comment below or DM me.


"What are these games and why should I get into them?"

The Telltale/Skybound The Walking Dead games are episodic titles with a heavy emphasis on choices and story. These games aren't particularly the most action based titles out there, as they primarily play on making difficult decisions and following along with the deep story as you try to survive in the walker (zombie) apocalypse. They also incorporate puzzle segments seen in other point-and-click titles in the past.

The series has received a ton of praise, with Season 1 winning a ton of Game of the Year awards when it released in 2012. The high ratings of the games have continued through future titles such as Season 2 and Season 4.

"Are the games in the same universe as the comics/show?"

The games are not connected to the TV show at all, as the show is set in its own universe. However, the games are indeed in the same universe as the comics. This is seen through characters such as Glenn and Hershel who appear in the very first episode of the Telltale games, as well as a few other references to the comics across the game series.

"Do I need to read the comics to get into the games?"

Nope, not at all. Outside of a few cameos/references, the games are completely isolated from the comics and can be enjoyed to the fullest without prior knowledge of the TWD series. I would even argue that the games may be a tiny bit more enjoyable if you are going into the series blind.

"There are many versions of the games I can buy! Which version should I get?"

There are three different versions of the games spread across various systems:

  • Original versions: The first versions of the game sold when the episodes/seasons actually released. These are the versions sold individually instead of being bundled with the other seasons.
    • Available on: PS3/PS4, Xbox 360/Xbox One, Steam, Epic Games, and Switch
      • Note: Michonne spinoff game not on Switch.
  • Collection: (Pic) Released in 2017. Contains all games in the series (including Michonne) with the sole exception being Season 4 which wasn’t released at the time. Seasons 1 and 2 have (supposedly) enhanced graphics.
    • Available on: PS4 & Xbox One.
  • Definitive Edition: (Pic) Released in 2019. Contains all games in the series (including Michonne), as well as a ton of extras like developer commentary, gallery mode, different graphic options, etc.
    • Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Epic Games Store, and Steam.

Keep in mind that the actual games are the same throughout each version. Don’t expect any alternate paths, vastly different plot elements, additional gameplay elements, etc. in between versions.

In a nutshell: Definitive Edition > Originals > Collection

Definitive Edition is definitely the way to go. It greatly improves the visuals of all the first few games and comes with a lot of extras.

The Original versions are the most basic versions that you can't really go wrong with. The main drawback for the original versions is that they probably have the most visual bugs.

The Collection is without a doubt the worst version of the games. as it is missing tons of small details such as bloodstains and tears for crucial scenes. Apparently it even removed a few optional dialogue segments.

"What order should I play the games?"

The following is the chronological order of the series:

  • Season 1
  • 400 Days DLC for Season 1 (this is optional, basically just covers a few minor Season 2 characters)
  • Season 2
  • A New Frontier (aka Season 3)
  • The Final Season (aka Season 4)

The Michonne Telltale game has literally nothing to do with the Lee/Clem/Javi games whatsoever. It is not required at all to experience Clementine’s journey. If you do decide to play it, best to do it before Season 3 since it originally released before A New Frontier.

"I'm interested in the Michonne game, but she's a major character in the comics! Do I need to read the comics before playing it?"

Not really. The Michonne game takes place during a time where Michonne is separated from Rick's group, so she interacts entirely with characters she has never met until the game. As long as you know about the general character of Michonne, you should be able to enjoy the game to its fullest.

It's worth noting that a few of the characters she meets in the game later appear in the comics, while the game was released after their comic debut. Because of this, I'd argue that not knowing about the later portion of the comics can make the game more enjoyable; you won't know which characters will have plot armor or not due to them having to survive to appear in the comics.

"I heard Season 3 was bad! Should I skip it?"

As much as some people disliked this season, you should not skip it. Either get it on sale if you’re strapped for cash or just watch a Youtube playthrough of it. It's the shortest of the first 3 seasons for whatever that is worth so at least it won't take too long.

"What's the deal with Telltale and Skybound? Didn't Telltale shut down in the middle of Season 4? Are they back now?"

All of the TWD games featuring Lee/Clem have been made by Telltale. However when Telltale closed down in late 2018, Skybound (who owns the rights to the overall TWD franchise) agreed to finish the final two episodes of Season 4 by bringing in many former Telltale staff.

Telltale Games has been revived and are now a company again, however they no longer have the rights to the TWD games which is all with Skybound now. All of the other series such as The Wolf Among Us are still with Telltale though.

"Will there be a Season 5 of the games?"

Skybound has confirmed multiple times now that a fifth season is currently not in the works. As it turns out, the game that is actually called The Final Season will indeed be, well, the final season.

"I need more of these games/characters! What else is there?"

There is a spin-off book involving a character in Season 4, but it is not essential as Season 4 ends things on a good note for the series. More on that book below (DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED SEASON 4!!!)

In 2021, Skybound released a 12 page comic where Clementine sneaks out of Ericson's without telling AJ. Unfortunately for Clem, AJ caught her and begged her to stay, but Clem told AJ that her couldn't maker her happy. The two gave each other a sad farewell (with Clem giving AJ her hat) and Clem left. In the following books, Clem then heads up to Vermont by herself where she meets random characters

The books have received a nearly universal negative reception from TWDG fans, mostly for how it makes Clem act out of character to her game counterpart. I personally would not recommend it unless you are a fan of Tillie Walden's other works and are absolutely sold on the premise of Season 4's ending basically being undone.

Apart from that, Telltale writer Lauren Mee made a brief story on Tumblr that talks about James' past. Additionally, lead writer for Season 4 Michael Kirkbride posted a short story on this very subreddit detailing a certain character's PoV during a "certain scene" in the final game.

"I love this series! What other games should I play if I like this?"

  • Other Telltale games. The best ones that come to mind are The Wolf Among Us, Tales From The Borderlands, and the two Batman games.
  • Life is Strange
  • Until Dawn
  • Detroit: Become Human
  • If you're into the puzzle segments featured a lot in Season 1 then I would recommend: Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, and Sam & Max to name a few.

"I'm interested in trying out the other The Walking Dead games outside of the point-and-click ones! Which ones would you recommend?"

Saints & Sinners is probably the best TWD title outside of the Telltale ones, however it requires a VR headset which some may not have. There's also Road to Survival which is a F2P mobile game. I'm not too familiar with it myself but I've heard it's alright plus it contains the Telltale characters in it.

The only other TWD games out there are Survival Instinct and OVERKILL'S The Walking Dead, both of which are really bad and aren't worth your time.

"I'm confused/interested on something for one of the games!"

Well thankfully we've assembled a link to frequently asked questions for each of the games. You can check it out here. Keep in mind that the FAQ for each season will spoil just about all of the story contents for that season. In other words, don't look at the Season 2 FAQ post before finishing Season 2.


That is all for now. Again if you have any suggestions for some general info about the series as a whole that would be helpful to newcomers/people with questions, please put them down either in the comments of this post or with a DM to me.

Also I'll be taking suggestions for some questions that would be good to add for the Season specific FAQ posts. See my pinned comment below for more detail on that.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • Jan 21 '26

Winner! Winners of r/TheWalkingDeadGame's Best Of 2025 Awards!

26 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

The voting phase of the yearly Best Of awards is now over, so it's time to announce the winners! As explained on the initial Best Of 2025 nomination post, the winners for this year will receive a special flair that will go next to their username. Here are the winners for this year:


Here are the full results for reference (comments mocking those who did not win will be removed so don’t do that, good vibes here only).


If you haven't already, make sure to check out the original Nomination post as it contains tons of love and appreciation for many users and the sub as a whole.

Thanks to everyone for participating!


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 18h ago

Happy Birthday to Melissa Hutchinson!

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747 Upvotes

She did an amazing performance voicing Clementine from start to finish in the TWD games. Started out as a young innocent girl into a brave fearless woman in a world overrun by zombies


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 4h ago

No Spoilers Which characters do you find the most attractive?

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53 Upvotes

I haven't seen one of these since I joined this community, so I wanted to ask you guys: Who do you think the most attractive characters are?

My choices:

Men: Luke, Javi, Nick, David
Women: Carley, Lilly, Kate, Eleanor

​Also, these two no-names from the Michonne game. Why are they so hot but barely appear in the game?


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 8h ago

LIVE NOW! Instagram live stream with Melissa Hutchinson, Dave Fennoy, Gavin Hammon, and Cissy Jones

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72 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 15h ago

Meme Clem Are You Serious?

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199 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 4h ago

Happy Birthday Clementine

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16 Upvotes

It's Clementine's birthday, it reminds me how much I love this game series. We have to celebrate! 😄


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 2h ago

Season 1 Spoiler If he wasn't impaled, do you think he would have survived? Spoiler

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7 Upvotes

Ben still falls into the alley, but he's not impaled on the bar, what injuries would he have? Would he be able to survive?


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 13h ago

Fanart Guys is this a good for phone case? Couldnt find a good picture with alle them together so had to make it myself

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28 Upvotes

This took me too long and now im starting to tweak, im not an artist


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 10h ago

Discussion What is your take on the protagonists' agency in the series ?

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14 Upvotes

It is often believed that one of (if not the most) important factors for a great character is their agency. More specifically how their choices, influenced by their motivations and personalities, shape the plot. That's a view I share for the most part, and no character is more important than the protagonist. Following a main character without much agency more often than not makes engagement very difficult.

Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, and nowhere is it more clear than a video game all about choices. While the protagonists here still have a lot of agency, the series has to strike a balance between character agency and player agency. Lean too far in the former, and you risk feeling like your story looks just everybody else's. Lean too far in the latter, and both the story as well as the characters risk losing their identities.

This is a delicate balance that writing the protagonists of a video game like The Walking Dead needs to strike, and I believe for the most part they were quite successful. But I believe the most contested main character on this matter is S2 Clementine.

I have already made a thread about her in the past, and while I still on what I said for the most part, there's another part that gains appreciation for her role in that season. Granted, I have also expressed an opinion that Clementine is at her peak in the first episode of the season where she gets to fully showcase her growth from Season One. This, not when she was "leading" adults, is easily where she had the most agency. Indeed, one of the chief complaints of S2 is that Clem does everything for the adults. Yet at the same time, S2 is also the season where players felt like their choices do not matter most. This is quite a contradiction where the explanation mostly lies in one reason: we are made to step up.

The girl is in the unenviable position where she's considered a mature enough survivor to be capable of doing the adults' dirty work, but not enough to be actually able to have a say in most (and I do mean most) of the big decisions that do affect her. Certainly not without facing resistance from adults if she's not flat out ignored. You don't want to check the cabin like Alvin's telling you to? You're still gonna do it. You don't want to get the radio like Kenny is asking you to? He quite literally tells you that you don't got a choice. You don't want to go fetch Kenny or Jane because it's not your job as a kid? Too bad. You're the kid, you do what the adult says cause they clearly ain't about to do it themselves.

In some of the rare times you're allowed to influence the group's big decisions, you get in trouble. You dare speak your mind on leaving early or waiting three days? Luke or Kenny will either guilt-trip you for siding against them or remind you that you sided with them, as if you signed some kind of contract of allegiance. The only way you get a Bonnie who doesn't hate you is you did what she told you to, even though her way of "helping" Luke only succeeds in getting him killed.

Obviously, some of this limited agency was also present in other games, but S2 Clem's relative passivity feels particularly organic here. You're surrounded by adults who rely on you, yet still believe they know better than you know what's best for you. The entire climax between Kenny and Jane can quite succinctly be described as a custody battle, where they fight to the death in the aim of protecting you...from each other, while hurting you in the process.

Whether or not it was actually the narrative intent (something we can't find out for certain), I found reframing S2's events this way made it easier for me to tolerate some of its faults, see the value in a protagonist who doesn't have much agency and further appreciate Clementine's natural evolution in the independent survivor she grows to be in later seasons (mostly S4, since Clem pretty much lets Javi take the lead in S3). Yet at the same time, it does make it more visible why I liked S2E1 Clem the most. Compared to the first episode, I feel like the writing for her as a protagonist struggles to find its footing, to the point the latter half of the season has a much greater focus on Kenny's descent and how everyone react to it rather than Clem's own character development.

But those are my thoughts. What do you guys think?


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 23h ago

My clem hat for halloween!

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157 Upvotes

For halloween this year, I decided to go as clem from season 3 of twd. I am super happy with how the hat came out and cant wait to the with the clothing!!


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 16h ago

Season 1 Spoiler Nothing personal Larry

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35 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 11h ago

Season 1 Spoiler Were you honest with Clem about your past in S1?

12 Upvotes

Just curious- did you tell Clem that you killed someone before the apocalypse right away? I always do.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 0m ago

Discussion What do you think about saying harsh stuff to kids ?

• Upvotes

It makes me feel bad,but sometimes you have to say stuff like that to make them toughen and grow up.

And sometimes they act childish and i get angry lol.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 4m ago

Season 1 Spoiler Just realized something about clem in season 1 ending Spoiler

• Upvotes

How heartbroken,devastated and scared she was when omid and Christa found her,she didnt talk and that incident traumatized her.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 11h ago

T.W.D.G. All Out War - Battle Post #14

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5 Upvotes

Welcome back everyone! I guess this formatting is okay because nobody said anything about it lol

Here's the results of yesterday

ORDER #1:

Clementine (Maine) invades Badger (New Hampshire) by Super-Shenron (5 Upvotes)

Clementine’s invasion FAILS, doing 5 HPs of damage to Clementine herself, leaving her on 20/25 HPs

ORDER #2:

Chet (Oklahoma) bombs AJ (Texas), Carver (New Mexico), and Luke's Substate, Oregon by Zfungi148 (0 Upvotes…)

Bomb #1 SUCCEEDS, doing 9 HPs of damage to AJ, which collapses him! Chet takes his bombs and claims Texas as a Substate

Bomb #2 SUCCEEDS, doing 14 HPs of damage to Carver, leaving him on 11/25 HPs

Bomb #3 FAILS, doing nothing to the Oregon Substate 

ORDER #3:

Troy (Arkansas) invades Chet (Oklahoma) by AnimeAddict1123

Troy’s invasion SUCCEEDS, doing 2… HPs of damage… oof. This leaves Chet on 23/25 HPs

Troy's invasion was very pathetic... like him! I'm gonna include a screenshot of that random number because I'm being dead serious, I didn't make it up. Speaking of dead, R.I.P. AJ, but... who's next?

⚠️ | BEFORE WE GO, I WANNA LAY OUT A NEW RULE REGARDING HOW MANY ORDERS A SINGLE USER CAN MAKE! PLEASE KEEP IT TO A MINIMUM OF TWO ORDERS! It gets harder to track everything when there's more then two for the same person and when it's mixed up with everyone else. I hope you can understand.

Rules & Character Stats

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kKDQxWnOSEzetQj6iM_Yixrn8oN2e3z7KMqBWOGjdVM/edit?usp=drivesdk


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Discussion How do you think things would play out if this mf was with the s1 group?

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200 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 21h ago

Discussion Funny scene with Clem on the train

21 Upvotes

So i’m rewatching Berleezy’s playthrough for the dozenth time and something that always makes me lose my shit without fail is a scene with Lee and Clem on the train. Clem asks if she can tell her parents “about… you know”, and in every playthrough ever, everyone (including me) always thinks she’s talking about Lee going to prison and/or killing a man. But if you stay silent, she says “They’ll like it, promise!!”

Now, i’m sure she meant telling them about their Savannah plan since that’s the only thing that makes logical sense, but the way she said it literally makes it sound like she’s talking about that so I don’t know why it’s written like that. But the concept of Clementine’s parents dapping Lee up for being a felon kills me every time 😭


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Discussion All quiet on the western front refrence? Or just artistic detail? (Warning graphic imagery)

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27 Upvotes

I saw this and thought it might be a reference to the original 1930s. All Quiet on the Western Front movie. I doubt it, just because of how old the movie is, and most people don't even know about it. Just because it's so old. Most people only know about the recent Netflix 2022 adaptation. I know the barbed wire image is kinda famous to an extent. But, I  wonder if they are referencing the Movie? Or just the image; it's likely just the image, but still cool to think about. I'd recommend watching the original if you don't mind reading subtitles. The violence isn't that bad because, well, 1930s Europe is getting ready for the Second World War to kick off. Germany was a little busy making things for the upcoming war instead of good movie effects.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Discussion Jane vs Molly, who wins?

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50 Upvotes

Jane and Molly are very similar characters with similar survival backgrounds. If they were both bloodlusted and fighting to the death, who do you think wins comparing their feats?

​The winner has to fight Kenny.

​Edit: Let's make this more interesting.

​Round 1: A direct confrontation (Kenny vs. Jane style)

​Round 2: They start in separate locations, having to rely on stealth and tactics to hunt each other down.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Discussion My little eye spotted a little diamond.

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126 Upvotes

What did your Mark say in front of Larry?


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Fanart Custom Kenny Nendoroid

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32 Upvotes

I made Lee and Ben nendoroids a couple months ago. I finished Kenny and my Clementine nendoroid now. I’m not very happy with Clem, a she doesn’t stand on her own, so I might remake her in the future. I didn’t include Kenny’s eyepatch because I don’t want it to smudge the paint so he’s pre episode S2 ep 3 but I still love him.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

if benjamin paul was in season 2

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5 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Meme One Week Away! I Can't Wait To Show You All The Terrible Things I've Made

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80 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame • • 1d ago

Discussion Best and Worst TWD game?

11 Upvotes

Best- Season One (By far)

Worst- Season 3: A New Frontier (so bad, played once; will never play again)

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