Earlier last year, the world was shocked by the announcement that Telltale Games was shutting down after multiple years of publishing popular narrative games. The episodic giant had pushed its workers to the brink and even then the company still sunk. With the closure of Telltale, many wondered what would happen to the titles under Telltale’s control: Wolf Among Us, Batman, Tales from the Borderlands, or Game of Thrones. Before Telltale shut down, they released the first two chapters of The Walking Dead: The Final Season. With the closure of the studio, many wondered what would happen to the rest of the highly anticipated final season.
In November, creator of the original books Robert Kirkman announced that development on The Walking Dead: The Final Season had resumed and that the next chapter should release before the end of 2018. Sadly, this was not the case but the third chapter did release on January 15th of this year. Portuguese and Spanish voice dubbing of The Final Season has been officially canceled due to budget constraints. The final chapter of The Walking Dead: The Final Season was released on March 26th just two days before PAX East. A physical version of the game is now available to purchase.
At PAX East, we met with Kent Mudle, creative director of The Walking Dead: The Final Season for Skybound Games to chat about the game’s rocky development and try out some of the latest builds. During our hands-on preview, we started out with the first chapter. After some minor technical difficulties, we were reunited with Clementine and AJ. The visuals of the game have changed, moving from Telltale’s cartoonish style to the new Skybound Engine. The game played noticeably smoother than its previous counterparts. The first chapter threw us right back into the emotional tale of Clementine and we were eager to see the ending.
During our meeting with Mudle, we had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about what might possibly come next. Mudle had previously worked at Telltale for 8 years, starting on Back to the Future. He previously worked as a cinematic artist, then moved to a director role. He was promoted to Creative Director before Telltale shutdown. When Skybound picked up the game, he was able to resume his previous role.
What has working with Skybound been like compared to working with Telltale?
Telltale granted a lot of creative freedom so when moving to Skybound business picked up as usual.
How do you believe players will receive The Walking Dead: The Final Season?
Feels like the community is rather satisfied with the direction that Clementine’s story is going. I feel like the studio has kept their promise on the arch that started in Season One. Feels as if there is a lot of love and positivity being returned from the community.
Mudle also referred to something that Kirkman stated previously, “We Can’t lose Rick Grimes and Clementine in the same year. Because of their love for the franchise, they resurrected the series despite the massive financial cost and work to make it happen. They made a sacrifice because of love.”
Did crowd play return to The Walking Dead: The Final Season?
No, crowd play was abandoned due to its minimal use. Even popular streamers saw a lot of lag when trying to use the feature with their community. The amount of work that it took to institute it was not worth the effort.
Mudle said that his favorite form of crowd play is getting all his friends in the room and yelling at the person making choices.
With going in fresh to the final season what do I need to know?
Clementine has found AJ in between seasons 3 and 4 and is now traveling and searching for a place that they can find and call home. You will see that Clementine has trained AJ appropriately to survive. The Walking Dead continuously is about finding a place to live that the dead or other obstacles will not interfere. The season is about Clementine making her most ambitious go at it yet.
Will Skybound potentially revive other Telltale franchises?
The reason Skybound was able to revive The Walking Dead was that they own the rights to The Walking Dead. They would have to work with the original holders of the IP. So ultimately, it would come down to Skybound working with those IP holders. It made sense for Skybound to revive The Walking Dead because they own the rights to it.
How many Telltale employees moved over to Skybound to work on The Walking Dead: The Final Season?
The team was about 45 people at its peak maybe a little bit bigger and it was a contract thing so it was rolling. So, a lot of people as they finished their job rolled on and off. So, most of the project is wrapped up now.
So, what is your next move?
I am still working with Skybound on some backend stuff for The Final Season for some ports and stuff. I do not know what is happening after that. I want to keep working in games and doing something cool with a narrative. No solid plans for the future yet.
We appreciate Mudle taking the time out of his busy schedule to show us Skybound’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season and for providing answers to some of our questions. The Final Chapter of the beloved franchise looks to provide an emotional rollercoaster to players. Kirkman and Skybound games have stated that although this may be the end of Clementine’s Story, it may not be the end of The Walking Dead games.
For more information on The Final Season, check out the game’s Steam listing. For more coverage from PAX East 2019, check out our time with Close to the Sun or Darksburg.
