Centered on a truck stop on a Georgia highway, this DLC episode for Season 1 of The Walking Dead by Telltale Games tells five linked stories of survival in the wake of the zombie apocalypse. From day 1 of the undead plague to 400 days later, The Walking Dead – 400 Days offers more of the horror and human drama of Robert Kirkman and Telltale’s award-winning series. Echoes of the choices you made in Season 1 will carry over into 400 Days and the choices you make in 400 Days will resonate into Season 2.

• DLC for the winner of over 85 Game of the Year Awards

• 5 linked stories that can be played in any order

• See the apocalypse develop from 5 very different points of view

• Your decisions will affect the story around you

Purchase of this DLC requires The Walking Dead – Episode 1: A New Day. – Digital

This episode starts with a bulletin board filled with pictures, and you must select each picture one by one to be taken into the specific tale of some of the survivors. Each story takes place at a different time in the first 400 days from the outbreak (hence the title for the title for this episode). As mentioned above, you’ve not stuck playing the game in a specific order and can actually select any of the pictures since in the end everything comes together nicely.

Players don’t need to complete Season 1 of The Walking Dead game before they play 400 days, but you will definitely appreciate this short episode a bit more if you’ve already finished Telltale Games masterpiece and are starved for more. None of the characters from Season 1 are in this new DLC which allows the new characters to have their 15 minutes of fame… which is actually how long it will take you to finish each of the stories available in the game.

This might be something bad for some people since the dynamic for 400 days is definitely different from what I got to enjoy in Season 1. The Walking Dead: Season 1 was all about Lee and Clementine and how their relationship evolved (or devolved) from episode to episode, right to the bitter end. In 400 Days, you’re only given a glimpse at the new characters and just as things start to get really good, their story is over… for now. After finishing 400 days I was definitely ready to start playing Season 2 since I wanted to see how these new characters would be included into the bigger story arc, but I’ll have to wait for a while since Telltale Games’ next release will be for Fables.

The Walking Dead : 400 Days is an interesting experiment from Telltale Games since it mixes some of the gameplay mechanics from Season 1 with new ideas and elements that give us a glimpse into what Season 2 will do. It’s hard to talk too much about 400 Days since it is very easy to spoil any of the mini story-arcs by making even the slightest comment, so I’ll leave it up to you to experience this short but interesting episode. I do have to mention that there are some missable trophies this time around since (I can imagine this is the case since Telltale Games figured replaying one of the stories on a separate save file in order to unlock missed trophies wouldn’t take long), but I hope that Season 2 treats trophies just like Season 1 did: all story-related and unmissable so that us trophy hunters we can focus on the story and nothing else.

[review score=”90″ pros=”Solid story and gameplay.

Great set-up for Season 2.” cons=”This episode is shorter than usual.

You need to own Episode 1 in order to get this since it’s DLC.”]

Disclaimer

This review is based on a PS3 copy of The Walking Dead : 400 Days provided by Telltale Games