Xbox is giving away a game of the year winner for $3.74 to Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X users. The game in question isn’t available on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S natively, but the Xbox One version is playable on the pair of newer Xbox consoles via backward compatability. That said, Xbox, specifically, the Xbox Store, is only giving away this Game of the Year winner for this price until September 10. After this, the 75% discount making this ridiculously cheap price point possible will expire.
At the 2012 VGAs, which would eventually evolve into The Game Awards, as they are known today, the Game of the Year nominees were: Mass Effect 3, The Walking Dead, Dishonored, Journey, and Assassin’s Creed III. It wasn’t the best year in gaming history, notiably sandwiched between two great years in 2011 and 2013. This allowed a smaller game, The Walking Dead, to take home the award of best game of the year. 14 years later, it still holds up incredibly well, and now anyone who has never experienced it can right this wrong on Xbox for only a few dollars.
In 2026, the adventure game where you play morally grew choices that impact the game’s story and ending isn’t very novel. In 2012, it wasn’t revolutionary, but it was certainly novel. There were plenty of games, especially in the RPG genre, where players make dialogue choices that impact story, but not quite in this style and not within the adventure genre. And unlike many other games that did it at this time, the decisions were on quick timers, driving players to make tough decisions on the spot rather than via a process of rumination. In the 14 years since, there haven’t been many games of this style that have rivaled the quality of The Walking Dead, including its subsquent seasons.
For those unfamiliar with the game, it is obviously based on Robert Kirkman’s mega popular and award-winning series of the same name. That said, its an original story within this universe. In it, you play as Lee Everett, a wrongly convicted criminal given a second chance at life in a world devastated by the undead. And in this world, you must not only survive, but protect a young girl named Clementine who was orphoned by the post-apolcayptic event. And this is the big strength of the game, its story. To this end, it is one of the best stories in video games of the 2010s.
Meanwhile, if you end up liking it, there are subsquent episodes, bolstered by two spin-off games, all of which is also on sale at similar prices on the Xbox Store. And the rest of the series is good, but not to the level of the first game. Meanwhile, if your budget is super tight, too tight for even a few dollars, there is a new free open-world game available on Xbox Series X, but not Xbox One.
