Zombie crush saga: Walking Dead No Man’s Land will be free-to-play

[MOANING]

Given the extraordinary success of Telltale’s Walking Dead adventure game series, I’m surprised there haven’t been a dozen different tie-in games by now. By my reckoning there was just one besides Telltale’s: the decidedly above-average real-time tactical game Walking Dead Assault.

Somebody finally forwarded the right Powerpoint to AMC’s licensing department, because Walking Dead: No Man’s Land has just been announced. Based on the TV (and comic book) zombie drama, the game features “characters fight[ing] for survival in a post-apocalyptic, walker-infested world.” All right! That sounds pretty good. What kind of game is it exactly?

It’s probably another soul-less Clash of Clans clone, I’m afraid. Neither the press materials sent around nor the trailer embedded below reveal any sort of gameplay details, but some cursory digging around in Finnish developer Next Games’ website uncovers that they’re a venture-backed studio “focused on… engaging free-to-play mechanics.” Shucks.

Now, I know I’m some kind of heel-dragging luddite on this topic. But I can’t be the only guy asking this question: how many nigh-identical Clash of Clans clones can the mobile gaming market support? I know CoC makers SuperCell are supposedly putting away $5 million a day with their free-to-play phenomenon, but surely the market is saturated now. I get ten pitches a day for games like this. There’s just no way that this isn’t a bubble.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe when No Man’s Land drops in 2015, it will be an earth-shaking revelation that changes free-to-play games so that they aren’t fundamentally player-hostile, unpleasant experiences. But I’ll stake a beer that it won’t. Anybody want to take the other side of that bet? No?

Watch the Walking Dead: No Man’s Land trailer after the jump and shake your head at the state of non-indie gaming. At least we’ve got Telltale.