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The end of Telltale games: all the updates about the fall of the studio

Telltale Games enjoyed a meteoric rise as a studio, adapting major Hollywood franchises like The Walking Dead, Batman, Game of Thrones and others. But in November 2017, problems began to emerge. The company laid off nearly a quarter of its workforce, and in March, those problems became visible as reports surfaced of a toxic management culture and a continual grind that burned out many of its developers.

In September 2018, the company abruptly laid off a majority of its staff, leaving many of them without severance, and effectively canceling the projects that it had in the works.

Follow along for all of our updates about the end of Telltale games.

  • Andrew Webster

    Aug 28, 2019

    Andrew Webster

    Telltale Games is coming back under new ownership

    The Walking Dead Clementine screencap

    Telltale Games is getting a second life. After a tragic and well-publicized decline, the game studio — best known for adaptations of series like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones — is coming back after a group of investors purchased the company’s assets with plans to relaunch. The new Telltale Games will be helmed by Jamie Ottilie and Brian Waddle, two industry veterans with experience primarily in mobile gaming and the technology side. “We believe there is still so much life to the brand and its franchises, and we look forward to building upon the company’s storytelling legacy,” Ottilie said in a statement.

    The new studio will operate out of Malibu, and the new ownership group says that it will be “re-releasing select games from the studio’s back catalog and developing new games in some of the company’s best-selling brands.” As part of that, the new Telltale says that it has hired or contracted “key talent” from the previous iteration of the studio. No specific employees were named.

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  • Jun 2, 2019

    Andrew Liptak

    Minecraft: Story Mode is being pulled from stores on June 25th

    Minecraft Story Mode

    Minecraft developer Mojang has announced that support for Minecraft: Story Mode is ending, and that players will have until June 25th, 2019, to download their episodes. The game’s delisting follows the disappearance of other games created by Telltale Games, which abruptly shut down last year.

    Mojang says that because of Telltale’s closure, the game will no longer be supported as of June, and that players who purchased it will need to make sure to download it before it’s taken down for good. The game is the latest of Telltale’s creations to be pulled from stores: at the end of May, Kotaku reported that games such as Tales from the Borderlands was no longer available on Steam, and that storefront Good Old Games announced that it would no longer be selling Telltale’s games.

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  • Jon Porter

    Nov 15, 2018

    Jon Porter

    Telltale Games is reportedly closing down for good as games disappear

    The Walking Dead Clementine screencap
    Image: Telltale Games

    Telltale Games is reportedly closing for good and selling off all its assets, according to a report by GameDaily. The co-founder of Sherwood Partners confirmed to the site that it would be handling the liquidation, and a former employee reported that their post employment healthcare insurance will stop at the end of November rather than after 18 months as was expected. Copies of the “Assignment for the benefit of creditors” agreement (a non-court process similar to bankruptcy) and letters to creditors have also emerged, and a number of the company’s games are no longer for sale on Steam.

    The developments bring to an end the slow decline of Telltale Games, which has been rocked by scandal after scandal in its final year of existence. At the end of last year the studio announced that it would be laying off a quarter of its workforce, shortly before allegations emerged that the company was beset by issues relating to its toxic management culture. Events reached a head at the end of September this year, when Telltale announced that it would be laying off all but 25 of its employees without severance.

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  • Oct 7, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Skybound Games will finish the final season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead

    Image: Telltale Games

    The final season of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead game will be completed. The failed studio reached a deal with Skybound Games to finish the season, the development of which was halted when the studio laid off most of its employees at the end of September.

    At New York City Comic Con, Kirkman told a panel that his company had come to a deal with Telltale to complete the story. According to Variety, Skybound will work with “members of the original Telltale team to finish the story,” although that hasn’t been finalized yet.

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  • The tragic end of Telltale Games

    When employees showed up for work on Friday, September 21st, at Telltale Games, there was nothing to suggest the day would be different than any other. The second episode of The Walking Dead’s final season would ship the following week; developers across multiple teams were busy with plans for in-progress titles.

    But only hours later, 250 people would find themselves with no job, no severance, and health insurance that would be gone by month’s end — just nine days.

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  • Sep 29, 2018

    Megan Farokhmanesh

    Former Telltale devs share the best goofs you never saw

    Telltale Batman

    Telltale Games as we know it ceases to exist. The studio laid off a devastating majority of its staff — around 250 people — last week in response to financial troubles. Many of its projects are effectively canceled. The future of a few others, like The Walking Dead’s final season, remain up in the air. Those who loved the studio’s work have been reminiscing over the past week, and in addition to fans sharing their favorite moments, many former developers have used the studio’s closure as an opportunity to share internal jokes.

    Campo Santo developer Jake Rodkin, who worked on the first season of The Walking Dead, posted several videos to a YouTube channel. Best among them is an, uh, alternative ending to the first season of The Walking Dead created by Sean Ainsworth. Spoilers, I guess?

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  • Sep 26, 2018

    Megan Farokhmanesh

    Telltale pulls The Walking Dead’s final season from sale

    The final season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead is no longer for sale. According to the game’s GoG page, Telltale requested “a temporary pause of sales.” The game can’t be purchased on Steam or via console either.

    Last week, the company suddenly laid off around 250 employees as part of what it called a “majority studio closure.” Staff were let go without severance. A small crew of 25 remains at the company to “to fulfill the company’s obligations to its board and partners.” In a statement to The Verge, the company says it has removed season passes from stores “for the time being.”

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  • Nick Statt

    Sep 25, 2018

    Nick Statt

    Telltale under fire for prioritizing The Walking Dead conclusion in wake of mass layoffs

    Image: Telltale Games

    Developer Telltale Games, maker of the popular episodic narrative games The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, is still dealing with the aftermath of an effective studio closure last Friday that saw around 250 employees, or 90 percent of its workforce, laid off without severance. Now, the studio says it’s shopping around the final season of The Walking Dead to third-party partners in hopes of appeasing fans eager for a conclusion to the saga that began in 2012 as an original spinoff of the graphic novel and TV show.

    The second episode of the fourth and final season is due out this week, but Telltale has neither the finances nor developer team, it seems, to finish the season’s remaining two episodes without outside help. Other projects left in the wind are Netflix’s Stranger Things and Minecraft: Story Mode adaptations, with the latter apparently still set to be completed by Telltale’s skeleton crew of 25 employees and the Stranger Things project up in the air.

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  • Andrew Webster

    Sep 24, 2018

    Andrew Webster

    Remembering Telltale Games

    The Walking Dead
    The Walking Dead.

    Six years ago, on a cold November day, I was forced to make the most difficult decision a video game had ever presented me with. I was playing the fifth and final episode of The Walking Dead’s debut season, and though I had long predicted how things would play out, it didn’t make it any easier when the moment arrived. A beloved character was beginning to turn into an undead monster, and he wanted me to kill him. All I had to do was press a button — but I labored over the decision, unsure about how actually killing someone, even someone about the become a zombie, would affect me. Eventually, I pulled the trigger, but it wasn’t easy. Six years later, I still think about it.

    This was the power of Telltale’s unique and distinct take on interactive storytelling. The studio’s best games were like prestige television crossed with a video game, creating dark and emotional stories that made you feel like you were a part of them.

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  • Sep 21, 2018

    Megan Farokhmanesh

    The Walking Dead developer Telltale hit with devastating layoffs as part of a ‘majority studio closure’

    The Walking Dead Clementine screencap

    Telltale Games, creators of episodic adventure games like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Batman: The Enemy Within, laid off approximately 250 employees today as part of what the company is calling a “majority studio closure.” According to multiple sources The Verge spoke with, employees were let go with no severance.

    “Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges,” the company said in a statement. “A majority of the company’s employees were dismissed earlier this morning.” The company will retain a small team of 25. These remaining employees will stay on “to fulfill the company’s obligations to its board and partners,” according to Telltale.

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  • Jun 15, 2018

    Megan Farokhmanesh

    Former CEO and co-founder sues Telltale Games

    VGX 2013
    Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Spike

    More than a year after his expulsion as the CEO of Telltale Games, co-founder and former CEO Kevin Bruner is suing the game development company, according to the Marin Independent Journal. The suit, seeking recovery of financial damages, has been described by Telltale as “meritless” and “an apparent means of extracting revenge on a company already under financial strain.” Rather than owing Bruner money, the lawsuit is comprised of “baseless and careless accusations of petty revenge,” says Telltale.

    Telltale is best known for its resurrection of episodic adventure games. Its work has included the critically acclaimed take on The Walking Dead, as well as original stories based on HBO’s Game of Thrones and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Although the court filings have been redacted to ensure “confidentiality and financial privacy,” Bruner alleges that the company was obligated by contract to give informational support as he prepared to sell his holdings in common and preferred stock. He also says that the company cut off communications just as he was preparing to sell those holdings. According to the lawsuit, “the net effect of Bruner’s alleged removal from the board of directors was that Bruner was deprived of relevant insight into the management and financial state of Telltale and the value of its shares.”

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  • Mar 20, 2018

    Megan Farokhmanesh

    Toxic management cost an award-winning game studio its best developers

    In 2012, on a light-drenched stage amid screams and cheers, Star Trek actress Zoe Saldana announced Spike Video Game Awards’ game of the year: The Walking Dead. The win was a huge coup for its relatively small developer, Telltale Games. Its emotional, storytelling-focused take on the popular zombie franchise beat out hugely popular games like Dishonored and Mass Effect 3 that required hundreds of developers and cost tens of millions of dollars to make.

    The Telltale Games team, including co-founders Kevin Bruner and Dan Connors, and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, made their way onstage to accept the award. Kirkman accepted the large, black statue from Saldana with both hands and handed it off to Connors and Bruner. Bruner, in turn, gestured two others onstage: Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, the project leads and co-creators of the game, thanking them for creating the game’s heroes. Neither of them was named onstage for their work in creating the studio’s biggest creative success. Shortly before two women in sparkly outfits ushered everyone offstage, Vanaman abruptly pulled the statue from Bruner’s hand in a moment that appeared unplanned and said, “We work with the most talented people on the planet.”

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