“What If” seems to be a growing trend in pop culture, with many fans hoping to see franchises likeStar Warsfollow in the footsteps of the Marvel show. One franchise that is getting this treatment isThe Walking Dead, with AMC, Flux Games, and GameMill collectively working together onThe Walking Dead: Destinies. While the game adapts the first four seasons of the show and closely follows the events and locations fans are familiar with, they may be able to do so with faces who never saw these places in the show.The Walking Dead: Destiniesgives players control over who lives and who dies, by letting Shane survive instead of Rick and showing how far the game is willing to go.
Game Rant recently spoke with Paulo Luis Santos, Game Director at Flux Games, regardingThe Walking Dead: Destinies, looking at how choice impacts the game, how combat emulates the show, and how slower moments are adapted too.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What has it been like working with AMC on The Walking Dead: Destinies?
It has been a true team effort to bring this project to life. It may not be something visible from the outside, but it really takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work of multiple talented and committed people and companies to get a product like this to the market. And we were fortunate enough to have rockstar teams at all three companies working relentlessly to drive this one home. We had recurring meetings between Flux Games, GameMill, andAMCto get everyone on the same page, discuss creative paths, nail technical decisions, adjust narrative points, find solutions to challenges, and ultimately play the game together to fine-tune the experience and ensure it meets the quality standards we all wanted it to meet.
Q: Why did the development team choose to adapt the first four seasons of the show?
We had many conversations between Flux Games, GameMill, and AMC regarding this very topic. We did consider doing more seasons at one point in the project. I, for one, personally wanted to be able to save Beth from her heartbreaking death at that hospital! But at the end of the day, we got to a place where we were sure that we wanted to focus on crafting the best TWD experience that we can, and to achieve that we decided that it means a more detailed, deep dive into these rich, awesome arcs that include Rick and Shane and Woodbury, as opposed to covering more ground seasons-wise.
Even so, we still set to cover a 40+ episode span, so we still had to make some tough choices and cuts to keep the game focused on the stories and characters that we feel are the coolest for fans to experience.
Q: Are there any elements, locations, or characters in the game, outside the major possible rewrites to the story, that will be brand new?
That is a great question. When looking into the project in the early days, we had to make many decisions regarding content and how to approachthe rich TWD universethat lives in our memories. It kind of surprised us when we realized it’s been 13 years since Season 1 aired! So we decided to go on a route that really brings back the events of the show and gets every player up to speed on those iconic early seasons. This means we mostly stuck with what the show gave us, while adding some minor elements to make things interesting. One good example is that we came up with some cool new Walkers, each one behaving in a unique way, that we created exclusively for the game to add some nice changes of pace to the game’s combat.
Q: Without delving into spoilers, how drastically can players change the course of events? We see a world where Shane kills Rick, after all, and there are a few teases for each character’s fate on the TWD: Destinies website.
The Walking Dead is an IP focused on its characters, their relationships, and their decisions in an unforgiving world. This means that the game relies heavily on how a split second decision can lead to the survival or death of different characters. The linear plot points still resemble the show, so you traverse from waking up at the Hospital to The Camp to The Prison and ultimately to Woodbury, but your decisions impact who the main protagonists are and who the ultimate villains could be at the end of the game. And I think that is the coolest thing you may change in the game.
When you get to the final level, there is a cutscene that shows your character roster - meaning those that survived the story because of your choices, and now made it to the tank fight at the prison. It gave me goosebumps to see that in action for the first time.
Q: To that effect, how many possible endings are there and how different can they be?
Technically, we have a whooping over 150+ variations of the game’s ending due to the different character combinations that the player can end up with in the group by the end of the game (Yes we needed some combinatorial analysis to get this reply right). But let’s get expectations straight: this doesn’t mean that the game features that many unique, totally distinct ending cutscenes - you’ll be watching very similar cutscenes of the final moment of the game with different characters on them. Besides that, one cool feat is that there are three different final bosses in the game depending on the choices you make in your playthrough!
Q: Could you explain the stress systems’ effect on gameplay?
The stress system adds a layer of pressure and survivability at the same time. When the player takes too much damage and gets to a near-death state, it triggers what we call “Broken.” For a few seconds, that character loses their mind, becoming broken and changing gameplay drastically! While in that state, take any hit and it’s game over. But if the player manages to survive those seconds, the character gets it together and gets a second wind, bringing gameplay back to normal. The catch is: that stressful experience leaves the character with a Scar, which slightly debuffs them and can be healed by performing other actions in the game. For reference, Scars are pretty similar to theMalfunctions in Returnal.
Q: How does playing each character and their various abilities differ?
We have created a character-driven skill system that is shared by the whole party, but is tied to who is a) in your party and b) alive. This means the “What If” choices also impact gameplay!
For example: You need Shane to be alive and in your party to unlock some abilities from his tree.If you chose Rick over himand haven’t unlocked Shane’s skills, you won’t be able to unlock the “Bogo” skill, that makes shotgun shells go through the first enemy, hitting the ones behind them.
This brings an extra layer to the decision-making in the game, especially on the first playthrough - because you never know who may die in the next story beat!
Q: How does the game approach the slower moments of The Walking Dead in terms of gameplay?
The game features what we call Headquarters sequences - those are playable moments that take place in-between levels where players can chill, talk with the characters in the group for a little bit of extra dialogue, get some opinions on what is going on. This is also a moment where conflicts may trigger, a neat little narrative feature that enables the player to make some role-playing decisions.
Q: Are combat encounters pre-set, like defend a massive wave or complete a stealth encounter, or are players able to approach combat in ways they prefer?
I love this question! While we do have some pre-set sequences that get players to do it one way or another, like an early combat-driven sequence where the Atlanta Camp is overrun by walkers and you and your group must escape at all costs, the vast majority of the game mechanics and levels were designed to let players approach the game the way they prefer: taking enemies head-on with melee attacks and gunplay, or stealthy approaching them and eliminating them one by one with your trusted knife.
The concept ofthe game’s combat systemis really based on the show and quite straightforward: the player is very powerful against a single walker. They should do OK against two. But if you’re facing three or more, things can get really messy, really quick, so you’d better watch out and avoid that.
Q: “What If” seems to be a growing trend in the larger entertainment industry, such as the Marvel show. Why do you think that is, and how do you see TWD: Destinies fitting in into that growing trend?
As a pop culture hardcore consumer myself, I personally thinkthe concept of “What If”is very, very exciting because of a few factors: 1) it is enticing to our imagination as fans of the cool stories and characters that we fell in love with; 2) there is a nostalgic factor that takes us back to the years when we originally followed those stories, and nostalgia is a powerful beast; 3) it opens up the door for speculation and fan theories, maybe even fanfic, so it drives engagement up in a very positive way both in social media and mouth-to-mouth conversations.
Now, when you talk about IPs that are immensely popular such as TWD, it is extra cool to revisit those canon stories and add twists to them! But that kind of privilege also comes with great responsibility: all things must stay on brand. For example: one can’t expectShane to be super softor Merle to be a kind team player. That would largely disappoint fans who know who these characters really are.
So in TWD Destinies, we wrote all the decisions, the story, and dialogues keeping the characters true to themselves, while focusing the What If scenarios on how the player’s decisions impact and change their world and generate new decisions down the road. And then it was just a matter of making sure characters were reacting to these new circumstances in a way that was true to their nature. We worked really hard with AMC to be 100% true to the show’s roots while still providing something fresh and unique for players trying out decisions that go in a different route than the show did.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add about The Walking Dead: Destinies?
Thank you for opening this space! While we have created the game thinking of fans, we have made sure to design the mechanics, the levels, and the storytelling in a way that even those not familiar with The Walking Dead and these characters can have a good time with it. In the end, our goal was to create agreat 3rd person Action Stealth gamethat lives and breathes TWD, and to achieve that, we put a lot of effort into making gameplay feel good on its own, with responsive, gory, satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay. We are very proud of the results, and I’m sure players will love the 1-2 combo you can unleash by unleashing a melee attack and a stab attack together! So I’d like to invite both TWD fans and non-fans alike to check out the game!
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The Walking Dead: Destiniesis set to release on November 14 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
