The Walking Dead Game: Season 3 Release Date

What is The Walking Dead Game: Season 3 release date? Everyone’s asking that question, and the short answer is December 2016 because at E3 2016 on June 12th during an IGN livestream developer Telltale Games confirmed Season 3 will premiere in November 2016! 😀 We’ll update this page with an exact launch date once it gets confirmed! Update: Confirmed to debut on December 20th, 2016 for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iOS & Android! – For now let’s go over the rumors for Season 3 after yet another cliffhanger that concluded Season 2’s ending! So please share your Season 3 ideas in the comments!

Watch The Walking Dead: Season 3 Debut Trailer here:

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The Walking Dead Game: Season 3 Release Date

Take a look at how all 5 endings of the final episode of Season 2 play out in this video here:

Here’s The Walking Dead Game: Season 3 image gallery.
Click on any of these thumbnails to see the full-size pictures:


Watch the Season 3 announcement by the creators:

At Skybound Entertainment’s 2014 Multimedia Panel at “Comic-Con International: San Diego” in July 2014, Telltale Games President Kevin Bruner and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman announced that there will be a third season of The Walking Dead from Telltale!

“It’s coming SOON? No, it will be coming LATER. Not this year but 2015.” -Telltale Games founder Kevin Bruner

To quote: “Will there be a Season 3? Ok… there WILL be a Season 3. Yes, we are going to be making Season 3. — And it’s coming SOON? No, it will be coming LATER. Not this year […] but 2015.”

Greg Miller hosted the panel, which featured David Alpert (Skybound), Robert Kirkman (Skybound), Darin Ross (Superfight creator), Kevin Bruner (Telltale founder), Christian Cantamessa (AIR director), and some guy named Norman Reedus (the TWD TV show actor who plays Daryl Dixon).

The Season 3 announcement can be seen at 18 minutes into this 1 hour panel video:

We are guesstimating Q1 2015 as the release period of Season 3’s first episode! Why?

Because Season 2 made its debut in December 2013 and it took a full three months before the next episode got released in March (opposed to the usual 4-6 weeks), since the studio is working on so many point-and-click adventure games at the same time (4 series at present). As a result we expect the developers to take a little more time to work on the first few episodes of Season 3, so that they won’t have to rush them out the door; with more preparation having been done before the first episode debuts in the first few months of 2015. This would mean Season 3 gets to keep the same almost-monthly schedule as the last half of Season 2, which is what most Telltale series seem to aim for. Delays notwithstanding.

That said, the official date is a vague sometime in “2015”, but at least we know we’re getting it! 😀

What are the hints for Season 3?

“Season 2’s Episode 5: No Going Back” ending spoilers ahead.

At the very end of Episode 5, Clementine is forced to choose between Kenny, Jane or kill/leave both behind. Quite the cliffhanger ending leaving us hanging at either Carver’s camp or Wellington!

Add to this the unresolved storylines like Mike, Bonnie & Arvo leaving the group, Omid’s pregnant girlfriend Christa still out there in captivity — along with weird fan-scenarios where Zombie Lee is slow-walking around somewhere — and you’ll start to see why we may have a lot of surprise encounters coming up in The Walking Dead: Season Three.

Because Season 3 isn’t in full production yet, this time there’s no after-credits cutscene at the end to give us a preview for The Walking Dead Game: Season 3. But don’t worry, the downloadable episodic game series will be back for more with The Walking Dead Game Episode 12 to 16!

Here’s the interview with the voice of Lee (Dave Fennoy), talking about Lee’s return in a dream sequence:

And here’s the actual Lee dream sequence:

Here’s the interview with the voices of Clementine (Melissa Hutchison) & Kenny (Gavin Hammon), talking about their difficult choices in Season 2 and being vague about in what capacity they will be returning in Season 3:

Video credits: Doug, Telltale & IGN

Quotes from the developers:

As Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead creator) & Kevin Bruner (founder of Telltale Games) confirmed:

“There WILL be a 3rd season of The Walking Dead from Telltale!”

Kevin Bruner, the founder & president of Telltale Games, said:

“The Walking Dead Season 2 ending is absolutely stunning. The whole studio is cranking out amazing content!”

Job J Stauffer, Director of PR at Telltale Games, added:

“Empathy. Humanity. Survival.
Who will you become?
#MyClementine

My only advice for the upcoming finale.
Play with your gut and play with your heart.
Do what you and your Clementine would think is right.”

In other news:

As of July 2014, Telltale’s The Walking Dead series has sold over 28 million episodes worldwide so far!

Following the digital release of the fifth episode in the second season, The Walking Dead Game: Season 2 will also be coming to North American retail in Fall 2014. This was announced by Telltale and boxart for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions has been spotted at multiple retailers including Amazon and GameStop. – Although it’s unclear if this will include the season-bridging extra episode called “400 Days”, but if that is the case the box will come with not 5 but 6 episodes.

I hope we’ll get to see more of Clementine’s adventures. What about playing as Jane for a change-up during an episode in Season 3 to see what she’s been up to? Getting her perspective would be interesting. But I’m sure you have much better ideas about what should happen in Season 3…

May 13th 2015 Update: The Director of PR at Telltale Games, Job J Stauffer, confirmed via his Twitter account that: While the full Season 3 of The Walking Dead Game will not arrive until 2016, we will be seeing a special cross-season episode of The Walking Dead Game — like Season 1’s “400 Days” special episode — in late 2015 (edit: ended up being announced for February 2016).

This makes it likely that the as-of-yet unannounced Season 2 “cross-season” special episode will introduce us to life in the Wellington safe camp. Which would be a welcome addition to the Season 2 finale, since we only know about the gate-keeper Edith living there, and much of Season 3 is expected to take place in Wellington.

June 11th 2015 Update: Telltale has teased that a big announcement for ‘The Walking Dead’ is coming at E3 2015, the week of June 15th, 2015.

This is very likely the 400 Days-like episode that bridges Season 2 & 3, since it’s not related to Season 3.

Here’s the full tease quote: “We’re heading down to Los Angeles next week for E3, and we’re packing something special for you guys! Watch the Official YouTube Live @ E3 Stream on Monday, June 15th at 9am PT/12pm ET for an announcement about The Walking Dead from series creator Robert Kirkman and Telltale Games.

We’ve already confirmed that this announcement will not be related to the third season, but it’s pretty big news for The Walking Dead fans, and it’s coming in 2015… what do YOU think it could be?”

June 15th 2015 Update: Turns out the previous update was correct and at E3 2015 Telltale announced “The Walking Dead: Michonne – A Telltale Games Mini-Series” DLC. You’ll need at least the first episode of The Walking Dead: Season 2 in order to play The Walking Dead: Michonne’s 3 episodes. The first episode will premiere in Fall 2015.

Watch Telltale’s The Walking Dead ‘Michonne Mini-Series’ E3 announcement:

June 17th 2015 Update: Telltale’s Director of Creative Communications, Job Stauffer, was interviewed at E3 2015 and revealed some new info about the Season 3 timetable.

To quote: “I think Season 3 is still a long ways off. I think there’s some more that we’re kind of working on and figuring out. I think Season 3 is going to be considerably — perhaps — larger [than previous games] and a more significant undertaking for the studio. But, you know, The Walking Dead and working with Skybound Entertainment and [series creator] Robert Kirkman [means] they are a premiere partner for us; and it’s just huge to work with them.

When we do the third season, we want it to be big, we want it to be incredible. We’ve said nothing about it. We don’t even know who you’ll be playing as. We have no idea how it will be tying together to Season 2 or the Michonne series. It’s a ways off. I think the first time you’ll hear more about it with any substance will be after the [3 episodes long] Michonne mini-series completes. It will be, you know, later [in 2016].

Long is relative in Telltale time, like working in dog years, we’re working episode to episode. So for us, next year maybe you will hear something. You look at the big studios like DICE and Rockstar where it takes years and years and years before you hear the next thing. With us it’s kind of like, you gotta look at the programming schedule, like a TV network.”

It’s very interesting to hear they haven’t decided who the Season 3 protagonist should be. Telltale should probably look at the top of this page, where (at this time of writing) out of 85,258 fans an overwhelming 78,357 voted they want to play as Clementine!

March 22nd 2016 Update: The premiere of The Walking Dead Game’s Season 3 will fall “later in 2016” (Q4 2016) according to Telltale Games CEO Kevin Bruner in a Mashable interview today.

To quote him: “When we got to Season 2, we had a plan in the back of our minds of how we would make all these endings keep those threads going forward.

From a role-playing, interactive storytelling point of view, it is not from the bag of tricks that we’ve ever shown anybody before. The way that we’re dealing with and validating and retaining all those different playthroughs is really cool and unexpected and, I think, pretty innovative from the storytelling point of view.

How do we go back and make sure all Walking Dead fans can get in while still keeping all of our storylines going? I think where we’re landing with the story for Season 3 does a really good job of both of those things. It allows people who maybe haven’t people who maybe haven’t played [the first two seasons] to come in and get up to speed really quickly. But it definitely respects, honors and facilitates all of the various end points that Season 2 had.

We’ve got a strategy to help Season 3 players … collect all their data from the previous games. [W]e didn’t have the cloud services in Season 1 that we have now,” Bruner said. “So we’re going to have a solution for everybody that we’re not talking about it yet.”

April 25th 2016 Update: With the finale of The Walking Dead: Michonne 3-episode miniseries out on April 26th, Telltale Games has published an interview with series creator Robert Kirkman.

In the above interview video, he speaks on the depth and complexity of Michonne and what makes her a long-lasting fan favorite in such an immensely celebrated series, as well as reveals the first details of the third season of The Walking Dead Telltale series. Mr. Kirkman reveals [in the last minute of the interview] that Season 3 will take place roughly in the same timeline of the current comics and will go more hand-in-hand with the comics than ever before.

Another exciting bit of information is that the third season will be checking in on fan favorite Clementine, “seeing where she’s at and what’s going on with her, which is going to be great”. While it’s too early to go into further detail, Telltale mention being thrilled for a return to such an incredibly beloved character that fans the world over have connected with.

With The Walking Dead’s Season 3 on the horizon to premiere later in 2016, it’s an exciting time for fans of The Walking Dead, and Telltale promise share more details in the coming months!

Ominously they are going out of their way to NOT say if Clementine will be back as the main character, but who could be the third season’s player character? Perhaps there will be multiple main characters!?

June 12th 2016 Update: The Walking Dead Game: Season 3 returns in Fall 2016! Clementine returns and is now in her early teens! Story caught up with the comics and TV show. Clementine’s missing a finger, the trailer shows her shooting a zombie in the head, with a grown-up young man called Javier (a brand new character) standing next to her saying they are getting closer to their target. – New players can also jump into Season 3. Yet it gets teased by the Telltale PR folks (Job & Lauren) that all your choices prior to Season 3 have the potential to impact Season 3.

November 22nd 2016 Update: To quote Telltale: “Fellow Survivors… many of you have been waiting for this. Today we can share the premiere date for The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series – A New Frontier! The third season in the critically-acclaimed series will premiere digitally worldwide starting Tuesday December 20th on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iOS and Android.

Beginning February 7th, the series will also be available for purchase on a special ‘Season Pass Disc’ for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at retail. The disc will include the first of five episodes in the third season, and will provide access to the subsequent four episodes as they become available for download.

You can actually preorder the season right now digitally and at retailers, and there are a couple of special bonus offers for those who jump in early. PlayStation 4 users can preorder the digital version by visiting the product page on the PlayStation store, and you’ll receive a complementary copy of The Walking Dead: Season Two and The Walking Dead: Michonne to tide you over until the new season releases!

For Steam users, you can preorder the season by visiting the product page on Steam, and will receive a discount of 10% as a thank you for preordering.

The new art released today includes a couple of faces you might recognize, and a couple of new ones as well. While we’re keeping a lot of the specifics on who exactly these characters are under wraps just a little longer, we can share a bit more info today on what the upcoming season is really all about.

When family is all you have left… how far will you go to protect it? Four years after society was ripped apart by undead hands, pockets of civilization emerge from the chaos. But at what cost? Can the living be trusted on this new frontier? As Javier, a young man determined to find the family taken from him, you meet a young girl who has experienced her own unimaginable loss. Her name is Clementine, and your fates are bound together in a story where every choice you make could be your last.

That not enough for you? There’s still more to come ahead of the premiere date! We’ll be revealing a special extended first look at the premiere episode live on stage at The Game Awards on Thursday December 1st – be sure to watch for a substantial sneak peek!”

Watch The Walking Dead: Season 3 debut trailer at the top of this page!

Who do you want to see in The Walking Dead Game: Season 3?

Other Telltale Games Series Release Dates:
The Wolf Among Us Season 2 Release Date;
Tales from the Borderlands Release Date;
Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series Release Date.
Minecraft: Story Mode Release Date.

Artwork credit: Hannah Andrews