The Walking Dead Episode 1 free on Xbox LIVE

One of the most critically acclaimed games of the year, The Walking Dead is now yours to try out if you have an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription. While the whole game isn’t available for free, you can still try out Episode 1, which wouldn’t take long considering the game is a roughly 500MB download.

Once you finish episode 1 and are left wanting for more, you can simply buy the other episodes through the game itself; the episodes get downloaded like DLC for a regular game. There is no indication about how long the game is available for free as of yet, but it can be safe to assume that it will be free till the New Year.

Kill a zombie to celebrate the new year

This is more or less what Telltale did with the iOS version of the game earlier this month. The game is still free on the App Store, and again, it would be a safe bet to assume that it will remain free in celebration of Christmas and New Year.

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While the other episodes are still paid, Episode 1 would be well worth your time as it still tells a good story and might even compel you to buy the future episodes.

The Walking Dead is a five-part episodic game series set in the same universe as Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic books featuring Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes. This is not another shoot ‘em up; it’s a game that explores some very dark psychological places, revealing that the undead are not the only thing to be afraid of when society crumbles.

In this brand new story, you are Lee Everett, a man given a second chance at life in a world devastated by the undead. With corpses returning to life and survivors stopping at nothing to maintain their own safety, protecting an orphaned girl named Clementine may offer him redemption in a world gone to hell.

The main selling point of the game is that you have to make choices at certain points; these choices then effect how the rest of the story plays out and has far reaching consequences for every character in the group of survivors.

Recently, during the Spike Video Game Awards, The Walking Dead received the Game of the Year award. This came as no surprise as The Walking Dead is praised by critics for its deep story and meaningful choices.

“Look, `Walking Dead’ fans, this is obviously for you,” beamed Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman. “Thank you so much. You guys watch the TV show. You read the comics. You play the video games. You make all this possible.”

Other awards won by the game include the best downloadable game and the best adapted game, best performance by a human female as Clementine for voice actor Melissa Hutchison and studio of the year for Telltale Games.