Originally written June 19, 2017

Telltale Games really made a name for itself with their 2012 game of The Walking Dead. I include myself in the fan base that jumped on board with their games when that game came out. While I’ve enjoyed some of their other titles since then such as The Wolf Among Us or Batman, whenever I see them returning to their story of The Walking Dead, I get excited. So, I’d like to start out this review by saying that A New Frontier is the third season of Telltale’s Walking Dead. This review will mainly be for people that have played the first two seasons, so if you haven’t, let me stop you right here. While I won’t be spoiling much from the first two games, and you don’t technically need to play either of them to understand what’s going on here, my recommendation for people that are wanting to jump in now is to go back and play the first season at the very least. You won’t be sorry that you did.

All that being said, let’s continue with talking about A New Frontier. So, to put it simply, I think that A New Frontier is an amazing season of The Walking Dead. If I’m comparing it to its previous two seasons, I’d say that I didn’t like it as much as season 1 (although that’s a tough act to top), but I did like it slightly more than season 2. Because of this, I was surprised when I read other people’s thoughts on A New Frontier, and seeing it called a terrible season by multiple people. This review is definitely a defense of the game, and I’m here to tell you why you should give it a chance.

The thing about A New Frontier is that you need to know what you’re getting into with it. I think that on its own merits the game is really good, but that if you’re looking for certain things out of it you might be disappointed. That being said, I want to talk about the story, the gameplay, the technical aspects, and the length.

So let’s start with the story. This is the aspect of the game where I can understand the divisiveness from fans of the first two seasons. See, over the course of the first two seasons, most people (myself included) have become very attached to the character of Clementine. We want to continue seeing where she’s at and how she’s coming along in the world of walkers. So, some people might be disappointed to hear that after having Clementine be the character you’re playing as in season 2, she has now been made into a side character. She certainly still appears in all five episodes of A New Frontier and is very crucial to its story, but the focus isn’t on her this time around.

I’ll admit, this kind of disappointed me when I first heard about it, since I love Clementine so much. However, I recognized that The Walking Dead as a franchise has never been about just one character, but rather has its focus on how different people are acting in a post-apocalyptic setting, so why should the Telltale series be any different? Because of this, you are now playing as an all-new original character, Javier.

Once I fully embraced playing as a new character, I found myself sucked into a great new story. One thing A New Frontier excels at is having interesting dynamics between its characters. When zombies started taking over, Javier was left to take care of the only family he had left. The kicker is that Javier’s brother David disappeared once the outbreak happened, but David’s wife Kate and his two kids were left behind. So, Javier has spent a few years taking care of Kate and the kids, to the point where they’ve practically become his own family. In typical Walking Dead fashion, these relationships are put to the test when Javier has a run-in with a bad group of people that are from a huge community in Richmond called the New Frontier. I can’t say anything more without spoiling anything, but I just found the relationships between characters to be extremely well-done in this season.

So, basically, the story in A New Frontier is really good, but you have to go into it with the knowledge that you won’t be getting a huge continuation of Clementine’s story. The focus really is on Javier and his family here.

But what about the gameplay? Well, like I said earlier, this review is specifically for people that have played the first two seasons, so I won’t waste time explaining the actual mechanics. But fans of Telltale games will know that gameplay is divided into three types of sections. There’s the choices, the quick-time events, and the point-and-click style “investigating” sections. The point-and-click stuff is where the most substantial gameplay comes in with these games, as the other two gameplay types are really just interacting with a story that’s unfolding. However, for someone like me, I’m really only playing Telltale games for the story, I don’t care much about point-and-click style games otherwise. I like these games for the choices you get to make, and I’m pleased to say that the choice element is still done just as well as always. There are some really good choices to make in A New Frontier, and there are so many different ways to influence the characters and story of the game. Where fans of the games might be disappointed is that there are much less point-and-click sections in A New Frontier than in previous games. This is something that I’m definitely okay with, but it needs to be known, since again it kind of just depends on what you’re looking for out of this game.

Now let’s briefly talk about the technical stuff. I think A New Frontier marks a significant improvement for Telltale on the graphical end of things. I’ve always been a fan of their cel-shaded graphics, but the art style in A New Frontier tops any other game they’ve done before. It’s still cel-shaded, but also has a more realistic look to it. It’s hard to fully explain, but it just combines cel-shaded and realism really well.

As for the other technical stuff, it’s fine, but not too impressive. I feel like the music in the game is good, but that it’s not anything that sticks out in my mind. It suits the story, but that’s about it. I genuinely loved most of the voice acting in the game though, and I thought it was powerful. The only gripe I have is that there’s one character from The Walking Dead show/comics that appears in the game, and I found his voice to be a little weird here. Otherwise everyone else is great though. Telltale games also usually have a lot of issues with how they run, and have always been the biggest problem. I think there’s still a long way to go, but I can at least say that A New Frontier runs a lot better than some of Telltale’s other games.

Finally, I want to talk about the length. As is the case for most Telltale games, A New Frontier is still five episodes long. I remember in the first season of The Walking Dead, each episode was around three hours. Since then, it seems like Telltale’s games have been getting shorter and shorter, to the point where a lot of the episodes in this season are only about an hour and a half. This might be a problem for some if you don’t feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, but personally I think it’s fine. I’ve always been of the belief that I’d rather a tight, amazing 2 hour experience than a bloated, repetitive 100 hour experience, so short games don’t bother me. And for what it’s worth, even though you’ll only get about half the number of hours from A New Frontier as you did from the first season of The Walking Dead, in the end it’s still a great experience. I didn’t feel like I was cheated out of a story at all, but instead thought things kept progressing at a nice pace.

So, in conclusion, I think the only people that will be disappointed with A New Frontier are those that want something else from the game than what it is. If you go into the game with the knowledge that the focus isn’t on Clementine, there are less point-and-click gameplay sections, and the episodes aren’t as long as they used to be, then I think the game is an amazing experience. I wasn’t at all disappointed with A New Frontier, and on the contrary I was extremely impressed with the new direction it takes, and was sucked into Javier’s story. As long as you know what you’re getting from A New Frontier and still think that the game sounds appealing, then I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

4.5/5