Telltale Games, developer of “The Walking Dead” series, has shut down

Alexander.Gray.Com
September 23, 2018

Telltale Games laid off 250 employees without severance over reportedly toxic management.

Sources told The Verge that employees were in constant “crunch time,” working 20 hour days and 100 hour weeks. In November 2017, the developer had to lay off 90 employees as a result of their unstable and unpredictable management style.

In an official statement on their Twitter, the company reached this decision after “a year marked by insurmountable challenges.”

“It’s been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course,” said CEO Pete Hawley in the same Twitter post. “Unfortunately, we ran out of time to get there.”

The defunct company has announced that a skeleton crew of 25 employees will fulfill their contract with Netflix to complete a TV version of “Minecraft: Story Mode,” but “The Walking Dead: The Final Season” has been cancelled. The second episode was set to release Sept. 25, but it is unclear if it will ever see the light of day. Telltale is yet to make comment if the series will see closure, or if there will be reparations made for fans who bought the game with the expectation of four episodes.

The “Stranger Things” project and the second seasons for “Game of Thrones” and “The Wolf Among Us” are among the casualties of Telltale’s shutdown.

Lead voice actress from “The Walking Dead” games, Melissa Hutchison, isn’t even sure of her character’s, Clementine’s, fate.

“To my knowledge, they will release Episode 2 and then that will be it,” said Hutchison in a Twitter post. “It hurts me that you, the fans, will not get to see [Clementine’s] journey through to the end.”

Telltale Games was launched in 2004 by former LucasArts developers, reaching moderate success with series like “Jurassic Park,” “Sam & Max,” and “Back to the Future.” The developer had their breakout success with the first season of “The Walking Dead” video game. From there, the company exploded with projects, developing “Game of Thrones,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Batman” games.

Despite initial success with “The Walking Dead,” no other series saw even close the same critical acclaim. Fans and reviewers put the blame on Telltale’s proprietary game engine that left games plagued by bugs and game-breaking glitches. The engine was updated for the release of 2016’s “Batman: The Telltale Series,” but was still marred by similar technical issues.

The developer also received frequent criticism for the many surface-level choices in series that promised game-altering choices. Telltale finally began to address in 2017’s follow-up “Batman” game, “The Enemy Within,” but it was a case of too little, too late.