Gamescom had its share of trailers and gameplay exhibitions, ranging from a cinematic trailer for the highly anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War to new footage of the upcoming PlayStation 5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. However, one of the most surprising announcements came in the form of a reveal for the newest entry in the Bridge Constructor series, a collaboration with the incredibly popular The Walking Dead franchise.
A particularly niche physics-based puzzle game, the series shifts settings with each entry in titles like Bridge Constructor Playground and Bridge Constructor Medieval, but The Walking Dead isn't the first beloved property it's collaborated with. Bridge Constructor Portal, a game set in world of the popular Valve title that included aspects of Portal's gameplay including fan-favorite character GLaDOS, released in 2017. But the franchise's past collaborations, doesn't make its most recent endeavor any less strange.
While Portal is a calm puzzle series that fits into the genre and niches of Bridge Constructor, The Walking Dead is the exact opposite. A post-apocalyptic world that tells harrowing stories about the horrors of the undead and the living is a series that few would imagine as their first choice for a Bridge Constructor setting. While The Walking Dead does have aspects of infrastructure building, as the countless settlements trying to rebuild the remains of human society, it's never exactly been the focus. Rather, the series has almost always been action based, choosing to focus on the tension and gritty realism that stems from its characters surviving in their harsh world.
Looking at past Walking Dead games causes this choice in crossover to make even less sense. The last successful games within this universe were the episodic chapters of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, which received both critical and fan acclaim upon release. While the games also didn't focus on action, they were story based with memorable characters and a well-developed plot. The warm reception to the Telltale series indicates that the main draw for players to the world of The Walking Dead isn't its zombies or aesthetic, but the compelling stories it is capable of telling.
With Telltale Games' shutdown following the completion of its fourth season of The Walking Dead, it wasn't clear what the next Walking Dead game would be. And while the Bridge Constructor crossover isn't the only game coming, The Walking Dead Onslaught is a VR game, limiting its audience. While there's nothing inherently wrong with a Walking Dead and Bridge Constructor collaboration, it's an odd choice considering that it is destined to lack what made the most successful Walking Dead games so great.