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Robert Kirkman on The Walking Dead, Games and Hollywood

In a 2023 GamesBeat interview, Robert Kirkman explains why adaptations should respect recognizable source material and how games bring their own kind of storytelling.
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In a 2023 GamesBeat interview with Dean Takahashi, The Walking Dead creator and Skybound Entertainment cofounder Robert Kirkman argues that adaptations work best when they respect what makes a story recognizable, while using each medium’s strengths rather than treating one as a copy of another. He also describes the Telltale games as substantial, self-contained Walking Dead stories—and a writers’ room as a way to bring varied perspectives to game narrative.

What Kirkman says adaptations should preserve

Kirkman contrasts adaptations that approach source material as something to “fix” with ones that retain its defining elements. In the interview, he uses the contrast between the original Super Mario movie and the animated film discussed in 2023, as well as the redesign controversy around Sonic, to illustrate the risk of changing familiar material in ways audiences may not recognize.

His point is about creative judgment, not a universal formula or a systematic ranking of adaptations: a new version can make changes, but should understand which features give the source its identity. The examples and argument are Kirkman’s views in the GamesBeat interview.

Why he values writers’ rooms for games

Kirkman says a writers’ room can bring different experiences and angles to a story. When contributors’ perspectives are used well, they can enrich the narrative. He describes applying that collaborative approach with Telltale on The Walking Dead game series, where it helped the team generate substantial game storytelling.

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“If you’re really using the writers room to the fullest potential, it enriches every story.”

The claim is not that every room automatically improves a story; Kirkman ties the benefit to using its potential well. His example shows how collaboration can support narrative at the scale a game series demands.

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Are the Telltale games side stories or standalone entries?

Kirkman says Skybound aims to avoid treating games as ancillary products. He points to Lee and Clementine, the central characters in Telltale’s The Walking Dead, as compelling characters in their own right. In his view, a player could encounter the franchise through those games alone and still get an authentic Walking Dead experience.

“Skybound tries to avoid that at all costs.”

That makes the games an independent narrative entry point, rather than a story that requires prior knowledge of the comics or television series. The interview does not name a particular edition or establish current product availability.

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What games, television, film and comics each contribute

Kirkman’s comparison is less about declaring one medium superior than about recognizing their different storytelling affordances. A long-running narrative may suit television; a particular story may work better as a film. Interactive play adds a personal dimension because players make choices and experience events through those choices.

Medium What Kirkman highlights
Video games Player choices make the experience individual and interactive.
Television Long-running narratives can have room to unfold over time.
Film Some stories may suit a film better than a long-form television adaptation.
Comics Kirkman treats comics as a medium in their own right, not a genre.

“Comic book is not a genre. It’s a medium.”

The distinction matters when adapting a story: the aim need not be to reproduce the same experience in every format. Each medium can carry a worthwhile version of a story by making use of what it does differently.

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Is a connected story across media already a reality?

Kirkman imagines a future in which games, television, film and comics connect into an overall narrative. But in the interview, he says efforts to link stories across media had not yet fully succeeded. He also acknowledges the difficulty of building strong work across several complex formats at once.

“I think there is, on the horizon, some kind of connecting narrative where you get that video game experience and that TV show experience, the movie experience, the comic book experience, and it all ties in and holds together as an overall experience that benefits from having all the different parts.”

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This is a possibility he described in 2023, not a claim that the industry has found a reliable formula or that The Walking Dead already offers a fully connected cross-media narrative.

What later franchise figures do—and do not—show

A later GamesBeat article, published January 27, 2025, attributes two figures to an Owl & Co. report: more than $1 billion in revenue for The Walking Dead games, and 1.3 billion viewing hours for the Netflix show in 2023. GamesBeat is the source for these attributions; the underlying report was not independently reviewed here. They provide later commercial context, but do not prove that any particular adaptation strategy caused a specific result.

The original interview was published April 14, 2023, and its page reports an update on June 18, 2025. Historical franchise dates and counts discussed in the interview are Kirkman’s statements in that conversation, not independently verified statistics.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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