Part 2 then looks at the narrative significance of Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youths, the primary setting seen throughout The Final Season.Part 1 looks at Clementine and AJ’s relationship, focusing on their opening scene together in Episode 1 (‘Done Running’).So buckle up kiddo, because here’s how it’s going down.

I’m going to try something a bit different here – I’m going to talk about my appreciation for The Walking Dead: The Final Season whilst also arguing why I think the story neatly encapsulates the tragic decline and fall of Telltale Games (2004-18).

Now normally when I see someone online reviewing a game they’ve played, they discuss what they did and didn’t like, what impressed them and frustrated them, etc. But then the subsequent completion of The Final Season by Skybound Games, the release of a complete collection on PS4 and some whispers online about The Final Season being a return to form for the franchise finally got me to take the plunge. But part of me at the time was glad I hadn’t invested in an unfinished story.

The gradual critical decline of Telltale Games’ output over those years did not help encourage me to return to the series either, and the announcement of their ‘majority studio closure’ back in late 2018 really made me feel for the game’s fans and development staff (except the management, of course). I had always been meaning to follow-up on the series but going to university, getting a degree and then settling into my first full-time job kept me away from playing (and also buying) video games. I didn’t have any prior knowledge of The Walking Dead franchise and even to this day I haven’t read any of the comic books or seen a single episode of the TV show. The storytelling, the characters, the world and the difficult moral choices all had me completely enthralled. I was introduced to the series by a friend way back in 2012 when Season One was first released and I just adored it. Ever since I finished the complete run of Telltale’s The Walking Dead games around a month back, I’ve been constantly thinking about The Final Season… like A LOT.

Clementine player skin