Thinking about Walking Dead

Warning:  There will be spoilers in the article below.  If you plan on playing the game eventually, please do not read.  If you have started the Walking Dead but haven't beaten all the episodes, then please do not read. 

 

I beat the Walking Dead about a month ago but since then, I have been unable to stop thinking about it.  The more thought given to the game, the more I realize that there is a contradiction at the core of the Walking Dead.  They are as follows:

 

1)  The Walking Dead featured the best, the most awsome and the most terrifying (in a good way) choices I have ever made in my history of gaming.

2)  The Walking Dead featured the most ineffectual and the most inconsequential choices I have ever made in my history of gaming.

 

That is the contradiction.  And yet, The Walking Dead is one of the best games I have ever played.  How is that?

 

The answer lies in the past.  Choices have been a mainstay of games since the current generation of consoles.  Fallout, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls, Infamous and many other titles all share the mantra that 'choice is king'.  Now it pays to discern how these games differ from The Walking Dead, which is in a class of it's own.  In earlier titles, choices have real gameplay consequences.  Chosing route A over route B may mean a shortcut to your objective or a longer path.  Choosing choice C over choice D may reward you with a stat boost versus some additional experience.  In other words you are rewarded, or judged, or punished by the game whenever you choose something over another and there are real gameplay consequences.  By extension, choices in most games are a factor to your character's survival.  Choosing one route over another may make your task more difficult, with a more frequent visit to the game over screen.  Choosing a stat boost may mean a better chance of survivial than just a handful of experience points.  Unless those points let you level up, making your character that much harder to kill.

 

Now contrast this with the choices in Walking Dead.  Absolutely nothing you say or do in the zombie game makes things easier or harder for your character.  Nothing you can ever choose will grant you any bonuses.  In fact, there isn't a single choice in The Walking Dead which affects your gameplay whatsoever.  Especially since the game is so easy anyone can beat it.  And with very few exceptions, none of the choices you make can get your character killed.  Most of your decisions affects the lives of the people you are with.  Your character is mostly immune to the consequences of your actions.  To be accurate, some of the choices you make can get you killed, but they are less of a 'choice' than a failure of saying the right things at the right time.  Kind of like how messing up button presses can get Lee killed.

 

So there in lies the heart of the contradiction.  Without real gameplay or survival motivation, the decisions in The Walking Dead are inconsequential.  And what's even more of a shock:  NONE of your choices matter to the overall outcome in the story!  Every single player in every single playthru will end up doing the same major things and getting the same ending all the time.

 

And yet… and YET…. the decisions DO matter!

 

I think it is because of this very contradiction that this is so.  I think it is the very fact that your decisions make for nothing in the long run which grants the game it's magic.  Because once you take away the threat of death, once you take away the gameplay factors, what you are left with are dozens of big and minor decisions which are pure.  The decisions are there solely so that the player can decide.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Without gameplay factors, the player can focus on making decisions based purely on the story and chracters.  While the way you play may not have any real consequence, that doesn't mean it's devoid of meaning.  Far from it.  Without the game rewarding or punishing the player, the player can focus on the meaning of his or her choice rather than simply which path feature the most rewards.  What it boils down to in the end is that the decisions you made were made because YOU MADE THEM.  There are no excuses or regrets.  It is what it is.  No rewards and no judgement.  And the game cleverly remembers what you said and do, so that even if all players end up watching the same ending, how the characters react to Lee and what they say to him make the difference.  

 

I find that the decisions in this game terrified me because there were no other distractions.  I know I will survive whichever I choose.  I also know that the game won't give me anything for picking one over the other.  The decisions are hard because there are no excuses.  I can't say afterwards that I wanted the experience, or the stat boost, or the short cut.  I can only justify my decisions based on what the story was at the time, or what the other characters were saying and doing.  And it is this… and it is also how the game throws you at the worse situations possible… that make the decisions worth something.

 

I have to take back some of what I said.  Maybe the stuff you pick aren't so inconsequential afterall.  Maybe the reward, and the punishment, of choosing one path over the other is in the story, the characters, and the fact that at the end of the game, the decisions are your's to live with forever.

Gaming Promise Update:

 Still playing the same games, glad to say.  Ni no Kuni and Devil May Cry are still on the list, but I am playing Ni no Kuni way more.  30+ hours and counting.