Ideas for Season 4: Principle Themes and Concepts
Through the course of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, the major theme has been about Family, and choosing between the Family you were born into and the Family you made. Now, going into Season 4...Now that we're gonna be playing as Clementine once again, it seems only fitting that the Theme of the Story is gonna transition into something new as well. What sorts of Themes do YOU expect to come up in Season 4? Leave your thoughts down below.
Here's What I Think: Trust, Broken Promises, Lies, Betrayal, Vengeance, and Hope.
EDIT: Here's another one. Supposedly it was going to be included with Season 3 but was Scrapped: Slavery.
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I kinda really hope that they go down a darker path with the season, but without actually killing Clementine, to show how brutal the world is, I think Clementine is still a good person, but good people have to do terrible things to survive, and I would like season 4 to focus on that, I honestly hope that we cant just be the good guy all the way through, I hope we have to choose between terrible things, and do things that have terrible implications
Or like the witcher. Choose for the lesser evil between two evils.
Roots.
If I were given the choice, I'd go for a mix of two major themes: hope and roots.
The apocalypse has been in for about 4 years, there has not been a major repopulation nor a stable way of producing nutrition, let that be food or water. It has been mentioned in S3 that, and due to the apocalypse digging in deep 4 years, the resources are going down in numbers constantly. So here's 'hope'ing. I guess it should be put, and as a Fallout 4 theme, that many humans unite and work together towards a hidden society that provides amazing resources and technology, and great defences.
As for roots, I'd like to see multiple protagonists, something like Game of Thrones. I'd like to see Clem go back to where it all began, Atalanta or Savannah or even her house. Who knows how those areas look like now? And as for the other protagonist(s), I'd like to see good character development and some good writing. These were absolutely lacking in S3.
On a complete side note, I'd love to see some of the characters from the show/comics in the game, something like in Game of Thrones, too. Glenn and Michonne are, afaik, the only characters to make it from the comics. No real show cameos.
I'll briefly summarize:
Clementine meets new characters
They all die either due to walkers or a cliche villain
Clementine lives walking into the sunset with AJ
It'll be nice to have at least two people of her new group live in the end.
Technically, all the Seasons/Installments have met that requirement. Give or take a technicality or two.
I said something about this in my first comment on this site. Here it is.
For some of the main themes, I figure I'd tie into the point of finding AJ.
Some of these only apply if Telltale lets us find AJ early in the game, still young, instead of later on, near the ending of the finale.
Maternal Instinct. This could be a interesting way of providing choice in raising AJ. How would you raise him in this post-apocalypse? Focus on teaching him survival, so he knows what to do in case of Clem's demise? Be at his side and protect him wholeheartedly, trying to keep him from coming to any harm, so that the dreary apocalypse doesn't extinguish his hope in the world? Would you let him survive on his own, or get him used to a group effort?
Protectiveness (and over-protectiveness). This would focus on Clem's psychological aspect of protecting AJ. What would she do to protect him? How far would she go? How many people would she kill to keep him safe? How far down the rabbit hole of death is she willing to dive so that AJ's childhood isn't tarnished forever? Yes, she'd save AJ from all the zombies, but would she kill people for his safety, no matter the cost, or handle things in a non-lethal approach, trying to talk down possible thieves and raiders?
Redemption. Given that Clem had some (possibly brief) time with the New Frontier, and how that group ended up being handled, she's still got the [literal] marks to prove her association with them. Since Joan's raids have affected so many communities, it's safe to assume there are some people who are still afraid of TNF. Would Clem try to right their wrongs, and prove to people that that group is no more? Or would she use that false power to her advantage, providing her and AJ with needed supplies?
Resolution. This is a small thing I'd like to add. Since we've seen Clementine get abandoned (or abandon others) so many times already, it would be fitting to see her get together with a group of people and stay with them. or not, if you so choose. Something that would be good to see is if you could shape Clementine to enjoy the company of others or the weightlessness of solidarity. How would she want to live the rest of her days in the apocalypse, if given the chance? Does she like being alone now, or would she rather return to a feeling of camaraderie and family?
That's all I got so far.
For a lot of this, I based my themes on the fact that this season might be a bit darker, and focus on Clem's willingness to protect those she loves, while caring for herself as well. I also took cues from what I imagine the original ANF plot would be, where you'd need to go scavenge for the group in return for your (Clem's) friends and your (Javier's) family. I assume that you would be able to use your ties with the New Frontier to be forceful and get supplies, but pushing those survivors away.. or try to reason with them, and get their help to get your friends/family out of this mess.
Edit: Also, s Zombiekiller3121 just reminded me of, it's important to bring these themes back as they were used in Season 1.. for the new players. I thought of these themes as a "passing of the torch" of sorts from Lee to Clementine.
The first few themes sound like the themes we had back in season 1 and I do think it is important to bring them back, for the new players at least. And I like how your trying to bring it back while adding new things to adapt to how the world has changed since the first few months of the apocalypse. Even less people around, the people that are left are in bigger groups that don't trust outsiders very well. And adding so many options to how you go about this live up to how we, the players, are supposed to be the ones in control of their fate. And how many of these choices can effect AJ's morals in the end. If any of these are actually implemented into this next installment, I would be very happy.
I really want to see more of a philosophical story. A Zombie Apocalypse is a perfect context to explore how humans work. I think that it could have a more philosophical approach than the other games, make it an intelectual work of art. And fill it with symbolism and references to great philosophers, writers and poets ("Then this ebony bird // beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, // By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, // “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven, // Ghastly grim and ancient Raven // wandering from the Nightly shore— // Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” // Quoth the Raven // “Nevermore.”) and shit.
I think that it would be very interesting if the story this time is focused in internal struggles and feelings (dream and nightmare sequences, emotional breakdowns, panic attacks, etc). I want to see Clementine questioning who she is and who she wants to be, not only the player thinking about this. I want Clementine to face depression and numbness and feeling for the firts time in a long time. I want to see the typical "Protagonist does something overly violent then turns around and sees the little kid that acts as moral compass of the group looking at her with horrified eyes because the person they trusted the most just acted like a monster" scene. I want Clementine to have an emotional breakdown and (determinately) this person that loves her so much (wheter it's romantically or not it does't matter) just hugs her and tells her it's alright. i want to see Clementine cracking a bad joke and fighting over the last candy bar with a friend. Slow pace, slow pace and a long story. I want seven hours episodes and a story that takes over a year or so. You can't have deep character development and relatonships when the story takes over a week. I think that "Feelings", "Human Nature" and "Identity" are great topics that can apply to literally everyone. Every-single-person deals with this and think that not only it's logic that Clem, a teenager, would deal with this, too, but I also think that it would give her depth and make the player bond with this new and older Clementine.
Yeah, I also had in mind while making this a "passing of the torch" of sorts from Lee to Clementine.
It kind of makes everything come full circle, and that just feels right.
I agree with this so much. I'd love to see what the emotional toll does to people in the apocalypse, when forced to do unspeakable things.
It might be hard to implement, given that Clem has been doing this survival gig for a while, so it'd be weird for her to breakdown out of the blue like this, but It would be an interesting thing to delve into.
Thank you for the support (wow 5 likes). Yeah, it would be weird if all of a sudden everything hits her so hard, but I can think of some situations that would take her to that point, like seeing something very hopeful or innocent. Things like that often make me cry imagine someone who hasn't seen that in years. Idk, I'm not a psycologist.