The Walking Dead: A New Frontier Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by Telltale Games
Released 20th December 2016
As a part of the "multi-year, multi-platform, multi-title" license that Telltale acquired with The Walking Dead IP, and the immense popularity, success and love from critics and fans alike of the first two seasons, a third season was not only guaranteed but had even greater expectations to meet than the second game. Telltale saw that the series grew exponentially, and with many players leaving the old generation of consoles, Telltale wanted to take the game into a new direction; striving to be new enough to accommodate the influx of new players, but still a faithful continuation of the story to appeal to the games' hardcore fans. To do this, Telltale pushed the fan-favourite Clementine to a supporting role, with a focus on a new protagonist and closer relations to the events of the comics (the source material of the games) - the mixed reception that this game received clearly presents how that went.
Story
The story had a lot to live up to considering its predecessors had won multiple awards in the narrative department in their respective years. Unfortunately, this game fumbles and falls greatly in its storytelling ability. This time around you have a new protagonist, Javier Garcia, a man who has been taking care and protecting his brother's family under a promise he made and throughout their survival, they come across a corrupt leadership of communities.
The game is way too action-packed. Every point of the plot revolves around a war between communities, instead of giving the player breathing room to connect with the characters and the transition between sections is horrendous as the pacing doesn't know where to belong. The attempt and thought of something new is not the problem, as I believe it's a strong start at a new type of journey to explore, but it's the final product that numbs it all down and doesn't have much of a chance at redemption as it took me around 6 hours to beat all 5 episodes - the shortest in the series.
The game does redeem itself at certain points with stylish and incredibly well-executed scenes and cinematography that still work like masterpieces even on a third playthrough. However, these scenes and moments only appear when the lacklustre technical performance of the game doesn't enshroud them and that appears a bit too often.
Gameplay
The gameplay is the same as in any Telltale game, divided into three equal sections: a point'n'click where you can roam around, a moment of QTE (Quick Time Events) and dialogue/choice-making for relationship building. However, this game decides to change the ratio between these components, applying a negative effect on the overall experience of the game.
The point'n'click happens very rarely which already deprives me of my small world-building but when these moments do occur, they're done ridiculously badly. The quantity of things to interact with is very minimal and doesn't offer much context or dialogue when interacted with, which bursts all my bubbles.
The QTEs appear so much and prove how this game is too action-packed. They're not done badly but instead, they're the same as always; if Telltale was planning on making a QTE-based game like this, they could've at least brought in new mechanics. The dialogue/choices are the only things I can somewhat compliment.
The segments in which I interact with characters are ok. While the dialogue and writing are less than mediocre, the moments in which they aren't, are the best elements of the game alongside those greatly directed scenes. The sincere dialogue the characters can deliver is heart-melting and the tense choices I have to make are stressful at that moment but ultimately these end up failing as choices are so insignificant that the ending you got last game only affects a particle of dialogue. The only time I can think of choices being important is the decision of each of the character's fate towards the end but you still get the same happy-ish ending regardless.
Characters
The characters are meh. Only a handful of the cast are great and have the human complexity that Telltale manages to nail in these choice-based games. Javier, Clementine, David, Tripp, Ava and Joan are the only characters that resemble anything to what previous instalments offered. While these characters do get numbed down to one personality trait, the scenes in which it shows their troubled self are brilliant and these appear mostly in flashbacks that work each of the three times I experienced the game, especially between Javier and his brother David.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is decent. The music is mostly recycled from previous games which can never go wrong and the comic book aesthetic is mixed in with hyper-realistic details which would've been amazing if not for the technical problems. Character models glitch; from teleporting across the screen for a millisecond or their eyelashes being so outlined and thick that their eyes turn black. Audio at times would appear wonky and the frame rate would drop quite a lot. The performance of the game isn't the best and the motion blur is jarring when high-tense scenes roll out. However, in return for all these sacrifices, the cutscenes don't pause to finish loading the rest of the scene, which I guess is a positive surrounded by negatives.
Story- 6/10
Gameplay- 4/10
Characters- 6/10
Atmosphere- 5/10
Subpar
A disappointing entry in the Telltale-verse of The Walking Dead. It's not so awful that it hurts to even think about the game (as evidence, I've played through it three times), but it does act as a detrimental dampener on the series, especially when you decide to play through them all.
