Recently, Job J Stauffer, the Head of Creative Communications at Telltale Games, teased some information about the upcoming season finale of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier via Twitter.
Played #TheWalkingDead ANF finale. Bloodshed & heartbreak! Whose blood will spill & which hearts will be broken… ALL on your shoulders
— Job J Stauffer (@jobjstauffer) May 10, 2017
Back in March, Telltale did a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) in which they revealed that they plan to release the fifth and final episode of A New Frontier in May. It would seem, based on Stauffer’s tweet, that they are right on schedule. Stauffer states that he played the finale episode, implying that it is either finished or close to it. The episode has also already been classified and rated by Australia and New Zealand, and have been for a couple of weeks now, giving more evidence to the claim that the episode either is or is close to being finished.
The rest of this article will contain SPOILERS for episodes one through four of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier.
Stauffer states in his tweet that “whose blood will spill & which hearts will be broken” is up to the player. There have been three ongoing romance dramas throughout the season, so the player’s decisions may impact who gets together and who gets their heart broken. The prospect of Clementine and Gabe possibly getting together has been a particular point of contention within the fanbase, so it will be interesting to see how Telltale deals with that and how much of an influence the player will actually have over that possibility.
In terms of blood spilling, there are also many characters potentially on the chopping block for the season finale. Characters like Conrad, Max, Clint, Joan, Ava and Tripp are all determinant at this point in the season. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, “determinant” is often used in the Telltale fanbase to describe characters who could have died, but managed to survive based on the player’s decisions. As many fans know from the first two seasons of The Walking Dead game, when a character attains determinant status, it is very likely that they will just end up dying later anyway. Although The Walking Dead as a franchise is known for killing characters indiscriminately, it might be a bit much to just have a massacre of determinant characters in the last episode of the season, so it will also be interesting to see how the player’s decisions can affect who will live and die, as well as what roles surviving determinant characters play.