In TellTale's The Walking Dead, protagonist Lee Everett is on his way to jail when all hell breaks loose. He is able to escape the squad car, slip his handcuffs and soon meets up with a young girl named Clementine. The duo will encounter a number of interesting characters on their journey through the zombie apocalypse including characters from the comic and television series.
We were able to recently secure an interview with one of the directors of The Walking Dead Video Game Dennis Lenart where we asked him about the future of The Walking Dead series. Enjoy!
AMANDA DYAR: The episodes so far have introduced two main storyline ideas: one is the gore and horror elements were ratcheted up plenty to seemingly say nothing is off limits for Telltale's storyline, and two is that new characters in the game don't have a long life expectancy. Are these two things we can look to continue as the game heads into its future episodes, and what was the significance in keeping Ben around when he wasn't very helpful to the group at all?
DENNIS LENART: One of the interesting things about violence in The Walking Dead comics and in turn, our game is that it is at its most horrific when there are consequences that really have an emotional effect on the characters. Dismembering a zombie might produce a ton of blood and gore, but performing a violent act on a conscious human, even though it’s the only way to save their life, is truly horrifying. In The Walking Dead, violence is a very real thing and no one is safe, no matter how important they seem to the storyline.
Part of what makes the comics so appealing and what we tried to capture with the game is that the characters feel like real people who are in genuinely life threatening situations. When one of them dies tragically you constantly find yourself thinking, “What?! I never thought that character would die!” Then you start second guessing who you thought was safe and who wasn’t and the next time the group is in danger your heart starts pumping in double time as you hold onto the hope that everyone will make it through safely…although you know that’s probably not going to happen.
AMANDA: One of the strangest things that have happened in the video game series so far is the introduction of the deranged Jolene. What was the primary purpose of her character and the bizarre video that she recorded? Also, will we learn anything else about her or the bandits now that the characters seem to be moving on with their journey?
DENNIS: Jolene is an example of someone who has not only been put through a physical hell, but a truly emotional hell. She tried her best to protect her daughter, but the twisted nature of other survivors in a world without hope left her unsuccessful. In some ways her story represents what could happen to Clementine if Lee isn’t able to protect her.
The video at the end of the episode functions somewhat as the confessional video diary of this broken woman who in her isolation and slow, mental collapse has come across Clementine from a distance and views her as a sort of surrogate daughter whom she wants to protect. We realize that although Jolene seemed like a threat at the time, now that she’s gone, there is one less person in the world looking after Clementine’s safety. Although Jolene’s story is finished, this definitely isn’t the last we’ll see of the bandits. The end of the video also presents the idea that since the dairy and its food supply are now gone, the bandits will be looking for a new source of food, which could very well be the motor inn that you and your group call home. AMANDA: One of the most interesting characters to follow in Telltale's The Walking Dead is Lilly. Lilly was pretty severely traumatized after the loss of her father. Where does the character of Lilly go from here now that there's a clear power struggle between fellow survivor Kenny and herself. Why were Kenny and Lilly chosen to be the characters that were at each other's throats?
DENNIS: In a group situation where lives are constantly at risk such as The Walking Dead universe, tensions between people come closer and closer to boiling with every passing day. Both Lilly and Kenny are strong-willed characters who have their own, valid viewpoints about how the group should be run so it’s only natural that at some point their disagreement will escalate. In Episode 2 we really got to see them start to clash for the first time and let the player decide who they sympathized with more. After the meat locker incident with Larry, Lilly’s tolerance for Kenny has reached an all-time low and going forward we’re going to push that relationship to its limits.
AMANDA: Episode 1: A New Day featured the characters Glenn and Hershel from the comic series. Is there any chance that we will be introduced to more characters or locales from The Walking Dead Universe as the season continues?
DENNIS: Since our story takes place in the same basic location and time as the comics it’s definitely not out of the question to think that at some point in the future we might run into familiar places or characters from the comics. We’re all fans of the books so if we find a great place for a tie in to that storyline with our own, it’s hard to resist.
AMANDA: Telltale is already said to be working on Season 2 of The Walking Dead video game series. While I'm sure you can't divulge too much information on the upcoming season, I was wondering if you could give us some sort of details on who we will be playing as in the new season or when and where the new game will take place.
DENNIS: Although I’d love to divulge secrets from the great master plan, I’d probably get my arms hacked off if I tried to write it down here. All I can say is that each character in the group still has a lot of room to grow, or rather, wither and we’re really excited to watch how players deal with them.
AMANDA: Lastly, what can you tell us about the episodes that are left in the current series and what can fans expect to see as the series nears the end of Season 1? Will there be any connection between future episodes of the game and that of the upcoming series of The Walking Dead television episodes?
DENNIS: While we're all huge fans of The Walking Dead TV series, our game is based on Robert Kirkman's Eisner-award winning comic series and exists, as canon, in that universe. We’re really forging our own direction with the journey that Lee and his group are embarking on and that making that story as rich and unique as we can is our ultimate goal.
In future episodes of the series we’re going to push and pull each and every character to their extreme limits. Just like the comics, we’re dragging these well-intentioned human beings through hell and testing just how much each person can stand before they break, and then once they do break, what kind of person they turn into. If you can believe it, things actually manage to get a lot darker as the series continues. After seeing what happens in the latter half of the season, I think going back and playing the first couple episodes over again is going to make things look almost cheery in comparison…which is awesome.
The world is going to open up a lot as the characters explore some really interesting new locations and meet a ton of new characters, some of whom will prove to be obstacles while others will become part of Lee’s group. Also, characters that you’ve known and loved up to this point will prove to have secrets that may change your opinion about them. In true Walking Dead game fashion though, the ultimate choice about how you react to them despite all their flaws will be up to you as the player.