The Walking Dead: A New Frontier - Episode 4 - Thicker Than Water Reviews

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier - Episode 4 - Thicker Than Water is ranked in the 37th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
70 / 100
Apr 29, 2017

Telltale's third season of The Walking Dead had a great start, but it's getting worse every new episode. Thicker than Water is the weakest point in the story, bringing an unbalanced and inconsistent narrative. Its climax rests upon Javi's flashback, which reveals more about the relationship with his brother David. Remaining only one more episode to save this season, it's time to question if the series can hold another one, or if Telltale's formula is already saturated.

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7 / 10.0
Apr 29, 2017

The Walking Dead and Telltale are both suffering from increasing fatigue, but this season's penultimate episode helps this particular story soldier on towards a potentially satisfying, if predictable, conclusion.

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5 / 10
Apr 28, 2017

The fourth episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is all build up and no payoff. The erratic behavior that occurs when going slightly off-script absolutely shatters any semblance of a cohesive narrative. Here's hoping the next chapter offers a more consistent and well-written story.

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7 / 10.0
Apr 28, 2017

The fourth chapter looks like a regular episode from the AMC series: a few zombies, a lot of dialogues, characters who act stupidly. Still, the ending is well-structured, and delivers some good moments and decisions. Not as good as the second episode, way better than the third.

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6 / 10
Apr 28, 2017

An episode that feels way too flat and uninteresting.

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8.5 / 10.0
Apr 27, 2017

Although I can't wait to see what happens in the next episode. It's leaving me feeling like the game has not moved at all. For the last 2 episodes we've only been introduced to one location, not like what we had for the last 2 seasons where almost each episode takes us to a different place. I hope that this game will still be able to reinvent itself and introduce us to more locations and characters in the future. But right now it seems that they slowed things down and just focused on the characters and not the location.

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65 / 100
Apr 27, 2017

Short, contrived, and occasionally frustrating; Episode 4 of New Frontier is so far the weakest of the bunch, and it's up to the game's finale to bring this entry back to the top of its game.

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4 / 10.0
Apr 27, 2017

With each new episode, we can see more and more clearly, that the developer doesn't know anymore, how to do original and engaging story. New season of The Walking Dead is huge disappointment.

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Apr 27, 2017

To say Thicker Than Water is the season's worst episode is both true and deeply misleading. It does take a step back from the extreme highs of the first three episodes, but this is still a story well worth seeing through to the end. Hopefully enough of the Garcia clan survive this season because they're worth another of their own. Some gripes with dialogue aside, the thematic elements remain strong, the characters are some of the best the studio has born, and this episode contributes to the still very high expectations for the season finale.

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GameSpot
Top Critic
7 / 10
Apr 27, 2017

Storylines finally converge satisfyingly in Thicker Than Water, the penultimate chapter of the New Frontier.

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8.6 / 10.0
Apr 26, 2017

This fourth episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is, probably, the best so far. Very fast paced and with an outstanding ending that prepares the player for an epic ending of the season.

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60 / 100
Apr 26, 2017

Thicker Than Water is the weakest episode so far. It has a major focus on relationships between characters but it lacks logic.

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6 / 10.0
Apr 26, 2017

Much like the preceding episode of Season Three, ‘Thicker Than Water' is roughly an hour and a half. Although I would always prefer if each episode was slightly longer, it felt as though there was too much filler in this one. The opening episodes of Season Three felt like Telltale had set a great pace to the story, however now it feels as though the developers are slipping back into their old ways. With only one episode left, there's still plenty to cover in this story. I'm looking forward to seeing how the story concludes, but I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed by the predictability of the season so far. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for the final episode.

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70 / 100
Apr 26, 2017

The fourth episode of Telltale's The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is pretty uneventful and borderline monotonous until its climax, which somehow channels the pure evil of a villain like Negan, and finishes the episode off with a bang. Literally.

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3 / 5.0
Apr 26, 2017

I find myself waiting for the finale with mixed feelings. Episode four's finale has me eager to jump into the finale and face what comes Javi and the group's way, but I really hope Telltale nails down the pacing for episode five.

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5.5 / 10.0
Apr 26, 2017

The more I write about this episode, the less I like it. I actually went back and replayed it to see if the ending could be influenced by the player in any way (it can't), which certainly did Thicker than Water no favors. One disappointing episode isn't enough to write off the whole season quite yet, but I'm certainly less excited for the finale than I was this time last month.

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5.4 / 10.0
Apr 25, 2017

This was a light and weak episode that should have been a strong penultimate for a revolt within the city.

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3.5 / 5.0
Apr 25, 2017

“Thicker Than Water” has its moments of enjoyment and incredulity, but the slow build-up and the meandering nature of the episode as a whole turns it into a frustrating chunk of a mostly consistent season. Players who stick through it will be well-rewarded with an intriguing finale setup that will hopefully pay off, but individually, the episode feels more like an obstacle than a continuation.

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8.5 / 10.0
Apr 25, 2017

There's no denying Episode Four does the series justice, and the finale has been set up brilliantly.

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6.5 / 10.0
Apr 25, 2017

"Thicker Than Water," other than its satisfying ending, is the season's weakest episode yet. Little that precedes the action-packed conclusion feels like it has much, if any, weight to the ongoing story I'm invested in — namely Javi's life and his relationships with Kate, Clem, and David. I'm absolutely on the hook for the season finale after that strong start and thrilling ending — I just wish everything before it hadn't felt so thin.

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