Warning: This article may contain spoilers to all currently released episodes of Telltale's The Walking Dead.
Should Clementine have been in A New Frontier?
Clementine captured the hearts of gamer's in The Walking Dead: Season One as the innocent sweet child, forced to live in a post apocalyptic world. She was then the main playable character during Season 2 of the game. In December, Clementine returned once again as a side character in the premiere of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier. However, should Clementine of been in this new season?
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier follows a new main protagonist called Javier. Before the first episode released, I wasn't too sure if I would like Javier but he has shown himself to be a character that is fun to play as. As with all characters, Javier has a goal that he wants to succeed in. His goal is to protect his family and keep them safe.
However, many Telltale players (including me) would never let any harm come to Clementine and would always side with her. This means that when Clem is introduced into the story, most players will side with her instead of siding with your family which Javier would do. Because of this, us players are making biased choices against what Javier would normally do to side with Clem as we have been with her since the start of Season 1. This shows that Clementine shouldn't be in The Walking Dead: A New Frontier as she is stopping players making the choices that Javier would make to protect the people he cares about.
Another reason why Clementine shouldn't be in this new season is because it means that Telltale can't dedicate enough time to her backstory and her character as Javier is the new spotlight. This is proven by the way Telltale handled our endings to Season 2. Season 2 had multiple endings with Clem at completely different places accompanied by different companions. All these endings were brought to the same place in a small three minute poorly written flashback. We had spent a whole season building up to those endings and then they were handled very poorly. Clementine also acts the same way and her personality is the same and not based on your choices in the past two seasons. All this shows that A New Frontier can't bring justice to the character of Clementine with a new main playable character.
Because of all these reasons, I don't think that Clementine should of been in A New Frontier. I loved seeing her return but the way that her backstory and personality has been handled makes me wish that she was absent in this new season.
What should telltale have done with the character?
Instead of being in A New Frontier, there are other paths that Telltale could of taken with the character of Clementine. One of these is to make another season with her as a main character after A New Frontier ended. This could be a full series (For example Season 3 and have A New Frontier as a spin-off) or a miniseries. Having another series with Clem as the main playable character would allow Telltale to focus more on the endings from Season 2 and make them actually impact the story. It would also allow the player to keep defining her personality instead of scripting her personality like they did in the newest season.
Even though Clementine is a character in A New Frontier and the endings of Season 2 have already been devalued, it would still be nice to have a new season (or miniseries) based on Clementine to further her character and maybe even bring an end to her story in Telltale's usual emotional and heartbreaking way.
Do you think that Clementine should of been in A New Frontier? and do you think she should get another season based on her in the future? Feel free to let us know down in the comments.
Orphanchocolate
Clementine certainly should have been in A New Frontier and to be honest we shouldn’t really be playing as her at all. Our part in her decisions is over, she’s her own woman now. She’s been changed by what’s happened since the last season and that’s important. I taught her how to live in this new world in season 1 and helped her go forward with this new world in season 2. By this season, she’s her own woman, I’d even advocate killing off Clem this season so they can complete her arc rather than drag it out for two more seasons, or forever as some people on reddit seem to want.
I’ve spoken about this before on Reddit but just because your BIG OVERARCHING CHOICE didn’t impact the direction of the story doesn’t mean it has any less value as a result. These games aren’t about generating a whole storyline for you specifically, it has to hit the same beats as everyone else’s copy but how you get there and how your character would behave and your reasoning for your actions are a product of every little choice that constantly gets written off as “Well I said to do this and they did this and now it’s the same as Pewdiepie’s playthrough again so what was the point” If you’re making these decisions from the heart and the heart of the characters, which after having clem for 2 seasons now is almost impossible to not do, the story really is changing depending on how you play.
Anonymous
I do agree about killing off Clementine but I think a miniseries all about her would be the best way to do this.
This is Javiers story and its not based on Clementine so if she dies in this, it wont be as emotional as if she died in her own story when we were more involved in her narrative and her character.
Jacob Preston
I do agree about killing off Clementine but I think a miniseries all about her would be the best way to do this.
This is Javiers story and its not based on Clementine so if she dies in this, it wont be as emotional as if she died in her own story when we were more involved in her narrative and her character.