The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode 1 - All That Remains Review

I’m not convinced that TellTale Games can recreate an episodic series as emotionally potent as the first season of The Walking Dead. The characters, violence, and player agency united in a beautiful blend of undead drama, but recapturing that magic is no simple task.

All That Remains, the opening episode of season two, stands as a short, violent foundation for things to come, but the $5 piece of content doesn’t do much to convince me that Telltale is on the right track with the continuation of Clementine’s fight for survival. The season opener fails to poke and prod at your emotions quite as effectively as last year’s downloadable debut, and while the 90-minute experience establishes a few interesting character relationships that will likely develop over time, it acts as little more than a paltry appetizer for what I hope is a full-course meal.  

That’s not to say heartstrings aren’t pulled in All That Remains. Clementine, the young girl who Lee Everett spent his last breath protecting last season, acts as the new playable character, and it’s difficult to not sympathize with everything this youth has gone through. The once robust group of survivors that she relied so heavily on has all but evaporated, and even though it’s obvious that she’s become stronger from a continued need to fight for survival, she still misses her parents. She still misses her best friend, Lee. And most importantly, she’s missing the support system necessary to carry on from day to day.

Omid and Christa – the happy couple who was introduced late into the first season – travel alongside Clementine early on, but a series of unfortunate events leaves the young girl alone and without much direction. This forces her to find her own food, search for a new place to stay, and even care for a stray dog with a bit more bite than he has bark. The unforgiving nature of The Walking Dead’s world has made Clementine a more capable survivor, and that’s quickly apparent when she uses little more than a bloodied knife and an old can of beans to feed herself. But this series thrives on character relationships. Just when it seems like she’s at the end of her rope, a new group of interesting personalities comes to the rescue.

But unfortunately, they aren’t too trusting of strangers randomly found in the woods – even those half their size.

The tension is immediately palpable once the young girl is brought into the group, and the fresh faces bring plenty of new decisions for Clementine to make. She has to choose how honest she wants to be about where she came from and how she’s survived up until this point, but the non-linear portions of the conversations aren’t as interesting as what was seen in the first season. As the player, you don’t feel like you’re making much of an impact on the plot. Instead of making sweeping decisions that change the nature of the experience, the options provided merely color Clementine’s tone.

It’s not like the series of events in this first episode don’t lend themselves to choice, either. After getting locked in a shed by the new group, Clementine has two clear options: she can either wait until morning and make the case that she poses no threat, or remove a few cracked boards in the corner of the wooden prison and escape. I had every intention of waiting until sunrise, but the game forces you to break out and continue the story TellTale has in mind. It’s moments like this that chip away at your sense of agency, making you feel a bit absent in a narrative dependent on choice.  

Regrettably, the biggest decision you have to make, which comes at the very end of the episode, doesn’t quite have the punch that it should. You’re only allotted the time to save one of two characters from the rotting jaws of the undead, but since you only just heard their back stories minutes before the incident, it’s difficult to feel strongly about either personality. There’s no tangible link between Clementine and the characters in question, so I felt much more apathetic than conflicted when faced with the branching path.

The new group has a few standout characters. I’m interested to see how Carlos, a doctor and overprotective father of the reclusive Sarah, handles Clementine’s independence. The shaggy-haired man who first finds Clementine in the woods, Luke, could just act as her new guardian now that Lee is gone. I’m excited to see how they all interact with each other down the line, but some time will need to pass before any of these emotional bonds are built.

Season two of The Walking Dead could be just as special as the first. That’s still to be determined. However, I walked away from All That Remains without that insatiable urge to see what happens next that every episode last year managed to give me. There are moments in this stunted piece of content that still have a strong emotional impact, and a sequence where Clementine has to stitch up her own wounded arm even forced me to look away from the screen. I care about this character, but she’ll need a strong supporting cast to keep players interested over the next four episodes. Hopefully, TellTale’s up to the task. 

Final Verdict

6 out of 10

A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.