Why weren't the flashbacks DLC?
Typically any major scene or plot point in any Telltale game with debatable level of writing, (notable examples include Nick/Sarah/Luke death scene and Arvo's getaway) sparks huge controversy on the game's discussion platforms, with heated discussion on both (or more) sides of the argument defending or criticizing the scene's realism, character motivations, 'value' of the scene, and the quality of the writing from a storytelling standpoint.
Players will fiercely defend their stance on the subject, be it that 'It doesn't make sense for Arvo to shoot my Clementine, I didn't steal his drugs and treated him kindly' or 'Sarah's death was a fitting end to her character, as it proves that 'innocence' cannot survive in the new world of walkers', it's almost guaranteed that fiery words will be thrown back and forth as to whether or not the event was a well-written one.
However, the same can't be said for the flashback in S3 A New Frontier - I legitimately cannot recall a single instance where anyone has complimented the infamous S2 ending flashback, and I've been scouring the TTG forums since S3 came out. The Kenny one in particular was astronomically bad - this beloved character, who has been with us since the dawn of the series, and one of the most important characters story-wise, is killed off in the span of 30 seconds.
I don't see why Telltale couldn't release a proper epilogue to the S2 ending as a DLC, or just not mention it at all ingame if they were going to handle it so poorly. Separating the epilogue as a DLC would have satisfied the fans without leeching from Javi's screentime and development. The extended length of a DLC episode could have helped us build back up our emotional attachment to Kenny/Jane, show how the family robbed us, how Jane was affected by the pregnancy, show how Kenny tries to better his flawed character as a foster parent and role model, show what it's like to live inside a functional, safe community, how Clem and AJ manage to get by completely on their own and the dangers of starvation and isolation they face. I would much rather wait longer to get a satisfying send-off to the season 2 story arc instead of the god awful half-finished disappointment we received.
I honestly cannot see how anyone, let alone an entire medium-sized game dev crew, can have 2 years to write and produce this fans-bouncing-off-the-walls anticipated flashback... and have this tacked-on minute-long dumpster fire as the finished product.
Comments
Because if they were DLC it would mean that TTG had always intended to follow through with our choices and that goes against their motto, which is allow the players a choice, but ignore those choices in favour of ours. The cannon ending was Clem alone and we all got that one way or another.
I would have loved a DLC as well...
But let's be real. Going by Michonne which was 1.5hrs I think... It would have to be ~1.5 hours at least with four different stories based off each ending:
Plus each story would have to be equally as satisfying and enjoyable...
So it would be 8 hours plus of content for TTG to work on whereas a proper season is even less (7.5 if we go by 5 episodes x 1.5hr length)...
The variant endings would have meant it might have been work comparable to a whole season and I doubt telltale would put that much effort in...
However what I could have seen them doing is making a DLC featuring Clem and AJ right before S3 when all the diverging endings would have "met up"... Maybe about her earlier experiences with the NF and expanding on what happened to AJ... Maybe it could feature flashbacks of Clem before she met Lee when the outbreak first happened since apparently they were thinking of including such a flashback this season although it eventually got scrapped.
Yeah, it would be hard to see how this would make any sense for Telltale. They were never going to create four separate games with four times the work and sell it as one.
And let's say through some crazy act of kindness, they decided to actually do this, to get it to a starting point for episode 3 they would have to funnel each game into the same ending and you guys would hammer them for that.
This was a no-win situation for Telltale.
I kind of always thought the multiple endings were ambitious but weren't a great idea for them since their team never really had the manpower, resources or writing brilliance to pull off believable different story routes that diverge from the different S2 endings.
I would had accepted and been happy if they regardless of player choice canonically killed off both Kenny and Jane then deliver us the cold and alone in the snow with a baby ending to pick up season 3 from there. It does seem as though the ending they most preferred was the alone one. Doing a move like that would also had greatly eliminated most of those Kenny vs Jane choice bickerings from last two years. Some might say we wouldn't get that final choice but our big choices rarely ever matter much anyhow.