When Telltale approached Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman with a proposal for an episodic adventure series based on his shambling works, he lauded the studio's plan to approach it with "decision-making and consequences rather than ammunition-gathering or jumping over things," as he told Game Informer in an interview. But what about the ammo-heavy and jumpy Walking Dead FPS Activision announced in July? In the same interview, Kirkman said Activision's given material could deliver a "worthwhile experience."
"I'm not as involved because that's [Activision's] thing," he said. "I'm looking at stuff. I'm aware of its existence. I know Activision is working very hard to make a cool-looking game and I'm hopeful it will be something that is worthy of the Walking Dead brand, but it's not something that I'm actively, intimately involved with."
In development for next year by Terminal Reality (of 2009's Ghostbusters), The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct follows the characters and desaturated wastelands of AMC's TV series instead of Kirkman's comics. You'll wade through the undead nightmare as Daryl Dixon, the Southern hunter and expert tracker played by Norman Reedus, in pursuit of Atlanta's sanctuary along with his overbearingly racist brother Merle. Expect a mix of stealth, brain-busting shooting, and presumable battle cries of "live power."
"I know there is a quote out there where I said, 'It would be dumb to do a first-person Walking Dead game because there are so many shooters that it wouldn't be something that would be competitive in the marketplace, and you'd always be compared to Left 4 Dead, so why bother,'" Kirkman said. "I don't think AMC read that quote.
"But I will say that this game is very much the Dixon brothers' game. These two characters don't exist in the comic, so the ability to play as those characters and learn more about those characters, who are very popular in the show, could actually push this game over the top and make it a worthwhile experience."
