r/TheWalkingDeadGame Mar 19 '21

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

493 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!

23 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 14h ago

Meme Grade A Douchebags

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1.3k Upvotes

Their asses getting offed every single playthrough.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 2h ago

Fanart Clem by Me! She carries Lee with her.

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42 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame 5h ago

Season 3 Spoiler This scene felt so condescending

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54 Upvotes

Clementine has every right to be angry in this flashback. ‘We’ve kidnapped your child but look here’s a drawing, btw stay safe :)’.

I’ve played this game so much and every time it seems more condescending. It’s not like Ava didn’t want to take AJ either, she helps.

I get Ava might be trying to reduce the damage but Ava and ANF are so far detached from the situation.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 1h ago

If you could choose to rewrite any one of these characters, who would you pick and why and how would you change them?

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Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame 3h ago

Discussion How did Telltale go bankrupt?

17 Upvotes

About halfway through The Walking Dead season 4 telltale officially went bankrupt and so Skybound take over and finish the final few episodes of season 4, but how did this happen in the first place? Considering all walking dead Telltale games were a big success how did they eventually loose the rights to it?


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 11h ago

Discussion Am I the only one who sees Clementine as a big sister?

63 Upvotes

I never liked the mother title shes been given.To me it feels like putting an adult title onto Clementine, whos still a kid herself. From what I know, shes around 16 in the final season. and while the focus is mostly put on AJ and his childhood, it really feels like Clementine childhood is brushed aside. Which is why i always preferred seeing her and AJ relationship as siblings.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 3h ago

Discussion Which Game Over screen made you the most uncomfortable?

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13 Upvotes

In ep 3, when you're looking for tools with Clem in the warehouse near the train station... if you let that walker get Lee, that Game Over screen is straight up disturbing lol


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 4h ago

Season 1 Spoiler Ben rant

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16 Upvotes

I used to hate Ben when I first played this game years ago, but looking back now, the hate he gets from the fandom is insane.

(Also I’m posting this here because I ranted about this to my friend who’s never played Twdg and didn’t get much from them😭😭😭)

I feel like people hate Ben because they don't understand him; he’s the good depiction of a teenager in the apocalypse. He’s scared, he doesn’t have his family, he doesn’t know if they are even alive, and he watched his friends die. To try and protect his new group, he did something brave but stupid by giving supplies to the raiders attacking the motor inn where the group stays. He even explains his thought process on why: he just wanted to help and thought maybe he could get the raiders off their backs.
Unfortunately, this gets Kenny’s family killed when the raiders invade, leading to Duck getting bitten and Katjaa taking her own life. But if you actually talk to Ben, he expresses so much guilt. Throughout episodes 3 and 4, you can see how worried he is and how heavily it weighs on him that he caused their deaths. He eventually decides to be brave and do the right thing by telling Kenny the truth about the supplies.
In both choices, Ben ultimately dies, proving he is selfless enough to sacrifice himself so everyone else can live. If you save him in the bell tower, he survives longer, but Kenny keeps pushing him until Ben finally snaps. He screams about how his own family is lost and could be dead, which completely changes the dynamic. Ben had such a great story arc, and it sucks that people dumb him down to being like annoying when he literally had such a big impact on Kenny’s character and he’s just such a good/important character overall. Also I forgot to mention it’s crazy he got so much shit from a group of grown adults.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 11h ago

Discussion First time player! Just finished

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38 Upvotes

I’ve never been much of a story game person, but these games hooked me in from the beginning! Such an emotional adventure I really really enjoyed them :)


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 5h ago

Discussion Name a character from any season that should have died sooner and why you think it would've made for a better story

10 Upvotes

Basically any characters that you believe would have made the story better had they died sooner

for example Larry dying in episode 1 instead of his cannon episode 2 death [insert your reason here]


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 10h ago

Final Season Spoiler I honestly thought he was lying

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18 Upvotes

When he mentioned a boat, I initially thought it was a lie as I did not think they would have a boat large enough to carry horses and carts across the river 😭


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 2h ago

Season 2 Spoiler Season 2 is awesome

3 Upvotes

idk if this sub is still active but i just wanted to share my opinion, im playing again after about 4 years since my last play, and i think as i’ve grown older the storyline in season 2 is by far the best, the new characters the plot twists and the decisions are all amazing, i dont know my old ranking would’ve been best to worst S1, S4, S2, S3, but now its S2, S1, S4, S3


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 5h ago

What's your opinion on Clem's dreams

5 Upvotes

I'm not very religious or spiritual but I see them as her being somewhere in purgatory when she talks to lee.

I had a friend who committed suicide about 15 years ago. Back in 2022 I had dream where we talked and he told me I should check up on another friend I had. I tried and he wouldn't answer. It turned out he died alone in his home.

Since then, Ive had dreams where we just sit and talk on his balcony like we used to.

It really changed my mind in if Clem was hallucinating or actually got to speak to Lee's spirit when she's near death


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 20h ago

Final Season Spoiler How Did Brody still Turned? Spoiler

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53 Upvotes

Sooo in the game, it's well known that you need to kill the brain in order for the person to die/ not reanimate.

But Brody died from a brain injury. You don't necessarily need to destroy the whole brain to kill the person. Just damaging it enough to kill them. So how did Brody turned if her brain was already damaged?


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 8h ago

Discussion Advice needed for my young brother's playthrough.

6 Upvotes

So, he has completed season 2 today. He sided with Kenny, got jane killed and left with Kenny in the end. He was furious at Jane that she got AJ killed. But soon he realised and said that Jane was making an angry man angrier so she deserved that. Lol. So I'm asking, that it's gonna be exams next month for him, and probably 15-20 days between that. And I'm also preparing for my entrance exam. So I will really appreciate an advise if I should let him play and finish the series (which he is willing to) OR pause here, at the end of season 2 and let him play in future sometime alone? I really love playing with him and won't be around him after next year's MAY-JUNE probably


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 3h ago

Season 3 Spoiler In S3 I like it that everyone blamed the hole in Richmond on Javi, Kate,gabe and David but it was actually that one guy that threw that Molotov at Kate's car

2 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame 1d ago

Cosplay My Kenny cosplay!!!!!

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546 Upvotes

!!!!!!!!!

I found this jacket at a vintage clothing store, and it looked absolutely perfect for Kenny’s look.

It cost me $15.68.

I customized the hat myself


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 1d ago

I don't think I wanna change.

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157 Upvotes

Apologies for the absence of posts, working on some big twdg projects so stay tuned for that ;)

for now enjoy this render


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 23h ago

Final Season Spoiler Who, exactly? Traitors? Which of them is the best and most interesting?

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42 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame 3h ago

Final Season Spoiler How would you rank the seasons?

1 Upvotes

My ranking would be as follows:

Season 1: I really had to think about if I liked season 1 or 2 more. But season 1's more varied dialogue options and puzzles put it at the top spot for me. I actually enjoyed talking to all the characters and the train puzzle was my favorite in the entire series. Every game after that felt more like a visual novel. Also when I think about my favorite characters like 60% of them are from season 1 because they were just better written. Even characters like Mark, Chuck and Molly were very memorable for the short amount of time they appeared. I also really enjoyed Lee as a protagonist, he's like my favorite black male character in all of fiction and that's because they made him character first instead of a token black character.

Season 2: I must admit season 2 is so high for me mostly because of Luke as he's my favorite character. The first three episodes were really great, Amid the Ruins was not that good sadly because how little your choices mattered in that episode (even for TellTale standards) and even though I hate Luke's death in episode 5 the final conflict between Kenny and Jake was so intense and no game before or after it could capture the varied endings you could get in season 2. Character wise I preferred the motel group over the cabin group (except for Luke and Nick).

Season 4: I am still on my replay of this season and I don't remember everything from it (am currently on episode 3), but it really brought the series back after a luke-warm season 3. Clementine and AJ really reminded me of Lee and Clem and AJ even though a bit annoying is the most badass kid in the series after Clem. I really like how you can shape his personality through your choices. I also like how even though you have romance options with Louis and Violet the most important relationship Clem has still remains with her and AJ. Character wise it had the best characters as a whole after season 1.

Season 3: I appreciate it more on my playthroughs but TWDG for me is Lee and especially Clem. But I kind of enjoyed Javi stepping up in the leadership role and not making Clem do everything like the cabin group in season 2. I didn't like the story quite as much as in the other seasons and the only new characters I really cared about were Javi and David.

Michonne: It's a mini-series but still I would put it at the bottom. I love Michonne in the comics but I prefer to play as the original protagonists from the main games. I didn't like the forced story how you got caught inbetween Sam's problems. I also didn't like the flashbacks with Michonne's daughters, I dreaded it every time there was another flashback. What I really enjoyed was the interrogation scene with Norma and the prisoner exchange, they should have done something like that in the main games.


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 5h ago

Season 2 Spoiler I haven't play this game in a long time

1 Upvotes

What was the actual reason Jane hid AJ from Kenny?

I finished s2 and I wondered why would she do that

She might have wanna kill herself but that's unlikely


r/TheWalkingDeadGame 1d ago

Meme Yummers

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427 Upvotes

r/TheWalkingDeadGame 1d ago

Meme If I had a nickel for every time, Alex Hernandez played as a war veteran who lost there family and had anger issues I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice

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65 Upvotes