Highlights
- The Walking Dead is praised for its choose-your-own-path gameplay and multiple outcomes, captivating fans worldwide.
- The game's excellently written characters, like Alvin, Christa, and Jesus, showcase intelligence, survival skills, and calculated approaches.
- Characters like Michonne, Lily, and Kenny exemplify strength, cunning, and adaptability, making them formidable forces in the game.
Despite being released in 2012, Telltale's The Walking Dead is still regarded as one of the best choose-your-own-path games ever created. With its multiple outcomes and different experiences depending on the choices one makes, it is beloved by many fans around the world.
But aside from the extensive choices players can make, the fantastically written characters are what make the game special. When trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, characters need to become smarter than ever before to stay alive, even at the cost of others sometimes...
10 Alvin - Season 2
Alvin is often overlooked in The Walking Dead and isn't often recognized for his intelligence. But, he is very smart and selfless. Unlike many other characters in the game and even his inner circle, Alvin stays calm and collected in moments of crisis.
When he helps Clementine get supplies against the wishes of his inner circle, it shows just how smart and sneaky he actually can be. Now, this may be because everyone else was wrapped up in other issues, but, regardless, Alvin's calmness helped him stay under the radar, and it could be argued that this was just a calculated approach to his survival. All in all, though, his actions were never done out of spite, and he was conscientious and caring until the end.
9 Christa - Seasons 1 & 2
Christa is the epitome of independence. Although she started her journey with Omid, she began to work well alone after his death, despite grieving, being pregnant, and going on an emotional rollercoaster.
At first glance, she can be abrupt and quite cold to any stranger who approaches her. But, this highlights her intelligence even more. She has her guard up, which helps her against imposters pretending to be a friend when they're really a foe.
8 Jesus (Paul) - Season 3
Jesus, whose real name is Paul, is incredibly skillful. Originally introduced to players as a potential threat, Jesus reveals himself to be calm and friendly to those who do not wish to harm him.
He is very intelligent, making him an ideal candidate to have on the team against a herd of walkers. He is even able to take down enemies without weapons, showing how well he has perfected his craft. He also has knowledge about camp bases, which leads to him helping Javier and his group take a shortcut to Richmond. He is calm and calculated in his movements.
7 Michonne - A Telltale Miniseries
Although she wasn't featured in the main story alongside Clementine and her journey, Michonne is a force to be reckoned with. She is strong, clever, and capable, despite grieving her young children.
Michonne keeps calm in stressful situations and keeps her guard up when speaking to people she isn't sure she can trust. However, she does use her intelligence to help others, too.
Throughout the game, she helps multiple people, regardless of the route players decide to take with her story. Michonne goes on one of the most physically demanding journeys throughout her journey, from being tortured, beaten, and chased by enemies and walkers. But, she comes out victorious in the end...if fans let her.
6 David - Season 3
Most players don't like David. He is obsessed with authority and very full of himself. He is arrogant, entitled, and rude. But this doesn't take away from his intellect. His drive seems to be motivated by his upbringing and moral code, and he feels that he needs to be harsh to be seen as responsible.
As he becomes one of the leaders of the New Frontier, he continues to be hot-headed. However, the pure fact that he became a leader of such a huge group shows how smart he is, and how capable he is of getting his way.
5 Lily - Seasons 1 & 5
Lily's return in Season 5 was a huge shock. Depending on one's choice, fans either left Lily on the side of the road in Season 1 or let her continue with the group, just for her to run away and betray Lee. Lily is ruthless but incredibly intelligent. She only cares about survival and will betray or hurt anyone who gets in her way.
Lily in Season 5 shows important character development. She grew to be a vicious leader that people feared, and it was her intellect that got her there.
4 Jane - Seasons 2 & 3
Jane is another cunning and quite selfish character. Although she has moments of regret and guilt, particularly surrounding Clementine, she is ultimately out to protect herself. Before meeting Clementine and the others in Episode 2, she had survived alone after the death of her sister. She is incredibly skillful and teaches Clementine a lot of tricks to stealthily kill walkers.
Jane tells people that she believes the best chance of survival is being alone, and leaving the group when she did was a huge sign of her intelligence. She goes with her gut. Her extensive experience and ability to function alone show that she is definitely not one to mess with.
3 Kenny - Seasons 1, 2 & 3
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One of the original characters from Season 1, Kenny is loved by so many players. Although he is hot-headed and prone to violent outbursts, his knowledge of how to conduct himself around danger is how he survived so long, and how he helped Lee and Clementine survive for so long, too.
He lost his whole family and lots of his friends throughout the tense events of the game but continued to stay strong and hold out for an extremely long time. He is caring towards those he loves but isn't afraid to make people pay for what they've done. He's always on his guard, and his intelligence helps him make choices that may not be objectively "good," but will ultimately help him, and many others, survive.
2 James - Season 4
James is arguably one of the most unique characters in all the seasons. He believes that walkers are still people with thoughts and feelings, and people should refrain from killing them. This is an unusual approach that people laugh at him for, but his awareness and knowledge of walkers are above anyone else.
He discovers a way to travel among the walkers peacefully, and it clearly works well, as he survives for an extremely long time. His calm and nurturing personality weirdly helps him survive the chaos in ways that no other character tries to.
1 Clementine - Seasons 1, 2, 3 & 4
Clementine was a small child when the apocalypse began, and was still just a teenager by the end of the story in Season 4. She grew up in an apocalypse with no family left, and sometimes completely alone. She had been beaten, attacked, abandoned, and betrayed throughout her life, but still managed to survive it all.
Clementine is smarter and more mature than most of the other characters in the game, which is ironic considering how much older most of them are. As she grows, she becomes more ruthless but still tries to save people as much as she can. She is calculated and plans her routes of attack precisely, making her the most intelligent character by far.