Grave Gamer News & Views — sequel

Clem is the Star of The Walking Dead: Season Two

Telltale has gone on record to confirm Clementine, your adolescent companion and inarguably the emotional anchor of Season One, is the playable lead in The Walking Dead: Season Two.

We pick up months after the incredibly somber, soul mincing events of Season One. Clem has been travelling by her lonesome, fending against the undead in the ruins of our cities as well as the living left ruined by them.

In her search for safety, Telltale promises “you will be tested by situations and dilemmas” that measure your morality just as much as your will to survive. Just when you thought it was safe to play a video game without having your emotions strung through the ringer.

The choice driven gameplay that brought the first season critical acclaim returns, and the narrative will be affected from the get-go by choices made both in Season One and the short expansion 400 Days. I’m glad Telltale seems to be locking the story into one perspective instead of several like in 400 Days, but given the amount of preamble the DLC’s cast received, count on them to return in Season Two in some sort of meaningful role.

The Walking Dead: Season Two will encompass another run of five episodes to be released across 2014 for PC, Xbox 360, PS3, and iOS. Missed out on TWD up until now? What in the handless Rick is wrong with you? Catch up on all of Season One plus 400 Days once The Walking Dead: Game of the Year Edition drops on November 11th.

Pop your rotting eyes back in and watch Season Two’s Teaser Trailer!

Naughty Dog: “There Are People in the Studio That Would Love to Come Back to These Characters”

So.  What does having one of the most widely beloved and critically acclaimed games of this generation get you?  “A sequel,” screamed every publisher on the face of the planet loud enough to sunder it.

That’d be the traditional school of thought.  Like Hollywood, the gaming industry no longer puts their chips behind one-off, difficult to market affairs.  Every time a new IP is born, publishers typically bank on it becoming an overnight franchise.  But The Last of Us isn’t your typical IP.  I saw something incredibly special and engrossing in the game and, more than apparently, I’m not alone.  It’s a unique title with an ephemeral quality I sincerely doubt a sequel could replicate.

But does developer Naughty Dog feel the same?  The game’s creative director and scribe, Neil Druckmann really doesn’t mind if a follow up never gets off the ground.  “We were very conscious that we didn’t want to leave this story dangling,” said Druckmann to PlayStation blog.  “If we never do a sequel, we’re okay with it because we told the story we needed to tell.”

Fair enough.  A masterpiece usually doesn’t finish with “To Be Continued…” (unless we’re talking about Back to the Future, but I shouldn’t even have to spout such universally known facts).  Speaking to Kotaku, however, The Last of Us sounds more like a misnomer than anything, with Druckmann stressing that this one journey – referring to the central plot set up in this game – is complete for Joel and Ellie, yet the rest of his team isn’t against further Cordyceps-tactular misadventures.

“…As far as whether we come back to Joel and Ellie or not, or whether we come back to the world or not, that’s all up in the air,” said the writer.  “I can tell you there are people in the studio that would love to come back to these characters, but the only way we would do it would be if we had something new, something meaningful to say.  Because the last thing we would want to do is repeat ourselves.”

I found the end of Joel and Ellie’s narrative deeply satisfying, but truth be told – and this is a lightweight spoiler – the finale does leave a wide enough door open for a continuation.  Does it need it?  Hell, no.  Would I be against revisiting two of the most roundly developed and engaging characters in video game history?  Hell, no.

Until The Next to Last of Us is a reality, fans of the instant classic are able to look forward to single-player DLC focusing on a side-story that Naughty Dog assures us will reveal more about the characters and the post-apocalyptic world they struggle to stay alive in.

2014’s Assassin’s Creed: Different Period, Dev, and Hero

Shocker: Ubisoft has more Assassin’s Creed planned.  Legitimate shocker: it’s ditching Conner, the Revolutionary setting, and has itself a completely different development team sculpting it.

Rather than branching off with ACIII’s freshly introduced assassin, Ubisoft’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, said we can anticipate both a brand new hero and different time period for the next installment, which will be “another major leap forward for the franchise.”

Under the tutelage of an unnamed Ubisoft creative team the sequel is expected out sometime before 2014, though it’s unclear whether it will remain within this console generation or roll out for the next-gen.  Until Sony and Microsoft’s Next Big Things step from out of the shadows, we’re going to have to sit pretty for an answer.