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In a 2023 GamesBeat interview, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman argued that adaptations work best when they preserve what makes the source recognizable, while using each medium for what it does best. He also described the Telltale games as substantial, self-contained franchise stories—not side products—and imagined a future in which games, television, film and comics could connect into a larger narrative.
Dean Takahashi spoke with Kirkman, Skybound Entertainment’s cofounder and chief creative officer, for GamesBeat on April 14, 2023; the page was updated June 18, 2025. The conversation ranges from adaptation choices to writers’ rooms and the different kinds of stories games and screen formats can tell. These are Kirkman’s perspectives, not a universal formula for successful adaptations. Read the GamesBeat interview.
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What should an adaptation preserve?
Kirkman’s starting point is recognition: an adaptation should not treat the source as something that needs to be “fixed” by changing its defining qualities. He invokes the contrast between the original Super Mario movie and the animated film discussed in the interview, as well as the backlash to the first Sonic redesign, to illustrate the risk of departing too far from what audiences know.
That is not an argument that every detail must be copied. It is a reminder to identify the elements that give a work its identity before changing its form. A film, series or game can make different choices, but Kirkman’s view is that those choices should not casually discard the qualities audiences came for.
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Why use a writers’ room for a game?
A writers’ room can bring different experiences and points of view to a story. Kirkman says that, when those perspectives are used well, they strengthen the work: “If you’re really using the writers room to the fullest potential, it enriches every story.”
He describes using that collaborative approach with Telltale on The Walking Dead game series. For him, the room was also a way to generate narrative at the scale the games required. The point is not simply to add more writers, but to make their different angles serve a coherent story.
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Are the Telltale games side stories?
Kirkman says Skybound tries to avoid treating games as ancillary franchise products: “Skybound tries to avoid that at all costs.” In his view, Lee and Clementine are compelling characters in their own right, and the Telltale series can offer an authentic Walking Dead experience to someone who comes to the franchise through the game alone.
That makes the games a viable narrative entry point rather than homework required to understand another adaptation. Their place in the franchise comes from the story they tell and the experience of playing it, not merely from their connection to the comics or television series.
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What can games tell that television or film cannot?
Kirkman sees different strengths in each medium. Television can sustain long-running narratives; a film may be a better fit for a story that does not need a long episodic arc. Games add an individual dimension: players make choices and experience events through those choices.
That difference matters when adapting a story. A screen version can shape an audience’s view of events, while an interactive version can make the audience participate in them. Neither form is inherently superior; the useful question is whether the story suits the format and whether the format’s distinctive qualities contribute something meaningful.
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Is a connected story across games, TV, film and comics already a reality?
Kirkman described that kind of cross-media narrative as a possibility on the horizon, not a solved model. He imagined a game, television show, movie and comic experience that each contributes to an overall story. At the time of the 2023 interview, however, he said efforts to connect narratives across media had not fully succeeded and noted how difficult it is to make strong work in several complex formats at once.
His aspiration was to make each part work on its own while also rewarding audiences who follow more than one format. That remains a vision expressed in the interview, not evidence of an established industry standard or a guarantee that connected storytelling will work.
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Why does Kirkman call comics a medium, not a genre?
“Comic book is not a genre. It’s a medium,” Kirkman says. The distinction is relevant to adaptation: comics can contain many kinds of stories, just as film, television and games can. Treating comics as a single genre risks overlooking the specific story—and the qualities of its original form—that an adaptation needs to understand.
What the interview does—and does not—establish
The conversation offers Kirkman’s account of how he thinks about creative collaboration, adaptation and franchise storytelling. It does not demonstrate that a particular method reliably produces better creative or commercial results.
A later GamesBeat report attributed more than $1 billion in revenue from The Walking Dead games, and 1.3 billion Netflix viewing hours in 2023, to an Owl & Co. report. Those figures are secondary-source attributions in GamesBeat’s January 27, 2025 article; the underlying report was not independently reviewed here. They should not be read as findings from the 2023 interview. GamesBeat’s report on the franchise figures.
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