Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead shuffled through the end of 2012, feasting mightily on many of the big name games that came out around. Digital Trends didn’t name AAA games like Halo 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, or Assassin’s Creed 3, games that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop and many more to market, its game of the year. That honor went to Telltale’s remarkably affecting story. The studio was quick to confirm in the wake of The Walking Dead: Episode 5’s release that it would produce The Walking Dead Season 2. Fans of the series may not have to wait for that season to start though, as Telltale says it might release new content in the interim.
“I can tell you what you already know, which is Season 2 is coming,” writer Gary Whitta told IGN, “There’s not much to say because it really is very early. It’s a way off. But, knowing that it’s a way off, and knowing that people are hungry for more Walking Dead, there may very well be more Walking Dead from Telltale before Season 2. We may have something extra for you between Season 1 and 2.”
The idea is that Telltale is hoping to “make the wait for Season 2 slightly less agonizing.”
There could be a more practical reason for introducing new content for The Walking Dead prior to the release of Season 2. Telltale Games has also said that it wants to give players a way to keep the continuity of their Season 1 playthrough when they begin Season 2. “This all remains to be seen but we are definitely figuring out how to carry the saves over,” said CEO Dan Connors in January.
The problem is that some editions of The Walking Dead, specifically the Xbox 360 edition of the game, have suffered from serious glitches affecting the stability of save files. It’s possible that Telltale is developing an add-on release for the first season that could add new narrative elements and better facilitate the storage of player-specific data before the release of Season 2.