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Work on Telltale’s The Walking Dead resumes with ‘many’ original developers

Work on Telltale’s The Walking Dead resumes with ‘many’ original developers

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The earlier seasons are also returning to Steam shortly

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Image: Skybound Games

The latest chapter in the ongoing Telltale Games saga finally involves a bit of good news: developer Skybound Games, which picked up the rights to the dissolved developer’s The Walking Dead series, says it has brought back “many of the talented, passionate team members who originally worked on the game” to finish its final season. Release dates for the remaining content will be announced some time soon.

Development on the final two episodes of the final season began today, writes Johnny O’Dell, the social media manager for The Walking Dead comic series, in a blog post published today on Skybound’s website. O’Dell also confirmed that the series’ games would be returning shortly to online stores, after Telltale’s recent bankruptcy proceedings resulted in the games being pulled from Steam. Telltale originally halted all sales of its final season back in September, but you could still access previous seasons in the series up until last week.

Skybound says Telltale’s earlier seasons will be coming back to online stores

Back in October, Skybound Games announced it had struck a deal with Telltale to pick up the rights to its narrative Walking Dead spinoff following the studio’s mass layoffs at the end of September. Skybound Games is a less of a traditional development studio and more of a publishing and licensing subsidiary of Skybound Media, which was founded by Walking Dead creator and writer Robert Kirkman. So it makes sense that Kirkman’s company would come in to save the series and give it a proper conclusion, with the help from proper game devs who used to work for Telltale.

We don ‘t know exactly how many people were brought back in to work on the final two episodes; Telltale laid off around 250 employees, some of which were not directly working on The Walking Dead and may not have been rehired. Still, it’s a positive turn in an otherwise unpleasant story about the untimely death of a fast-growing game studio.

Here’s the note in full:

Thank you for your patience while we worked with Telltale to take control of TELLTALE’S THE WALKING DEAD. It’s been a ton of work logistically and legally to get us to a place where we’re able to roll up our sleeves and get to the actual work. After Telltale shut its doors, the game was, unfortunately, unable to be worked on and hence the release dates of Episodes 3 and 4 have been delayed. But, we’re excited to let you know that many of the talented, passionate team members who originally worked on the game are resuming development efforts today!

Soon, we will be announcing release dates for the two remaining episodes. It’s likely that previous seasons of the game may be unavailable to purchase for a few days as we transition—but don’t panic!—we’ll have everything back online ASAP. If you already purchased Season Four, you will NOT have to pay again; future episodes will be available to download as soon as they are released via your original point of purchase.

Please continue to check back here on our Skybound site for future updates on the game!