The Walking Dead: Last Mile launched on Facebook Gaming and Facebook Watch on July 11. Advertised as “a massively interactive live event,” The Walking Dead: Last Mile is part show and part game. Additionally, it promises fans a new view of The Walking Dead universe. The experience will be a four-month event in which players make choices that tailor the narrative. New content will be available daily, with live streams happening weekly.
Taking place in Alaska, the new game explores a corner of The Walking Dead universe previously untouched by the comics or television series. Players must choose to join one of the two factions surviving in an isolated Alaskan town—The Plant or The Village. As players make decisions, the narrative alters, affecting who lives and dies and how characters behave.
Players create canon
After choosing a faction, players can participate in multiple mini-games and quests, which grant them influence points. Mini-games include fixing generators by creating a connecting path and slaying walkers.
Over the four-month lifespan of The Walking Dead: Last Mile, players will use their influence points at specific points to vote on how the story progresses. These voting sessions will have such a significant impact on the plot that the game’s creators don’t know which characters will survive any given cutscene. Beyond this, players’ decisions will be officially considered cannon to The Walking Dead.
“Together with the instant game on Facebook, the live streams deliver a uniquely social form of TWD storytelling, exclusive to Facebook Gaming and Facebook Watch, where the story is driven by YOU,” it says on the game’s official Facebook page. “Experience and influence a constantly evolving coastal Alaskan community through the Instant Game on Facebook with new story content available daily.”
Last Mile Weekly Live Streams
Every Monday, Yvette Nicole Brown will host an interactive live stream. During these streams, Brown will discuss how player choices have affected the story and reveal new details. In addition, some player characters that become popular enough in the Alaskan survivor’s community will appear in cutscenes. Essentially, players could create a character that becomes an official part of The Walking Dead universe.
This model is potentially revolutionary for the gaming industry. The idea of players truly controlling the game’s narrative is utterly compelling. The most notable such project to date was Netflix’s Bandersnatch in 2018.
While The Walking Dead: Last Mile is breaking barriers other games are entering the film industry. Prime Video is planning to make a live action adaptation of the God of War games. Likewise, Netflix is producing a Horison Zero Dawn series.
Jack Brassell is a freelance journalist and aspiring novelist. Jack is a self-proclaimed nerd with a lifelong passion for storytelling. As an author, Jack writes mostly horror and young adult fantasy. Also an avid gamer, she works as the lead news editor at Hardcore Droid. When she isn't writing or playing games, she can often be found binge-watching Parks & Rec or The Office, proudly considering herself to be a cross between Leslie Knope and Pam Beasley.
