In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Telltale CEO Dan Connors stated that Season 2 of their acclaimed "The Walking Dead" episodic game series was slated for a 2014 release. This was even more recently corrected in statements to Game Informer and IGN which clarified that the heavily anticipated season would debut in Fall 2013. Of course, this is great news for fans of the franchise and the gaming community as a whole, but even better is the news from Gary Whitta, co-writer on the game's first season and presumably the next, that Telltale is working on an installment that takes place between Seasons 1 and 2, to satiate eager customers' hunger for more meaty Walking Dead story-driven goodness.
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This franchise is a hype-machine. I doubt even Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead, could have anticipated the outrageous level of support, and the meteoric rise that his masterpiece would inspire when he penned the first scripts for the comic series just a few short years ago. So beloved are his characters and his universe that a point-and-click adventure game (the unwanted stepchildren of the games industry) under the same moniker, developed by an INDEPENDENT game publisher, that doesn't even revolve around the original characters or story, has managed to win over 80 awards, a great deal of them being of GOTY (Game of the Year) status. So what's the point to all of this? Sustainability.
The rumor and speculation mill fired up on the release date of Episode 5, and has been running at full efficiency ever since. Fan art, fiction, predictions, rumors, supposed "leaks", these have all been the norm and have not been contained to individuals, IGN even got in on the game with a predictions page written by Greg Miller. Everyone, including myself obviously, wants a piece of the action, but how long can they keep this up? History has shown that with great hype comes great time management risk, and also that when you rush things, they turn to crap. Activision suffered the consequences of these truths with The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, which was a mediocre release at best. By creating one of the best games that gamers have ever experienced, Telltale created a consumer black hole that swallows and analyzes everything that comes near it, and set the benchmark very high in the process. Can they leap that hurdle over and over, or will the series fizzle out like so many others? Will it go out with a bang? Tune in to The Waiting Dread for more details as soon as they're made available.
