You can buy a physical copy of Batman: The Telltale Series on September 13, 2016 for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360. The retail version will be of the Season Pass variety, eventually granting you access to the five episodes as they become available. The digital version however, will be out in August and also available for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.
It looks like Telltale is following their usual method of drip-feeding the episodes, as they hope to have the five episodes out by the end of 2016. I personally feel this is a mistake. Before the huge success of their Walking Dead series, it made financial sense for Telltale to release the games as they could afford to make them, with released episodes paying for the future entries. But after so much success with big-name franchises like Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands (with an aging but cost-effective engine), it would have been a nice change of pace to see Batman’s five episodes released as a whole or at least much closer together. Heck, even a confirmed schedule would be much appreciated.
The problem with playing episodes months apart is losing momentum. After a week or two, the story and characters can easily become quite hazy and epic cliff-hangers eventually lose their grip. The Netflix model easily proves how popular it is to binge a series. Episodes are still a fantastic idea for games as they break the experience up into digestible play sessions, but allowing the player to complete the season as fast as they choose makes the most sense in today’s on-demand world.
Although it’ll be hard to hold back on diving into the Dark Knight’s first Telltale episode (especially if the reviews are good), I’ll have to console myself with the huge discount that usually follows after all the episodes have been released and I can play it my way.
How do you feel about episodic games?
