Telltale “actively working” to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season

The tragic news that adventure-game powerhouse Telltale Games is going to shut down send shock waves through the gaming community last week. First, the studio responsible for the highly popular video adaptation of The Walking Dead disclosed that The Walking Dead: The Final Season would be their last project but only a day later, news broke out that the entire staff on The Walking Dead had been laid off, effectively canceling the production of the remaining two episodes.

A studio closure is anything but a regular occurrence and decisions during these periods can change at any moment. As such, today we learn from Telltale Games that The Walking Dead: The Final Season might become fully released after all. In a surprise Tweet, the struggling studio announced that multiple partners have stepped forward to help the studio finishing the remaining episodes, Episode 3 and 4.

This is anything but a solid confirmation that TWD: The Final Season will be produced to its intended original conclusion, but the notion that both the failing developer and multiple other companies – presumably publishers – are showing significant interest that The Walking Dead adventure-game series sees a worthy completion is solace among the sad imminent closure of Telltale Games.

It’s not out of the question that, depending on which “partners” have contacted Telltale Games, The Walking Dead might get to live on and spawn future titles in the same genre and style under a new developer and publisher. The IP is just that valuable and popular after all.

Since last week, when the public became aware of Telltale Games’ dire outlook, speculations with regard to the reason how one of the shining examples in the game development scene could end up being forced to close shop, have been the talk among gamers. After all, the quality of the studio’s games can hardly be the blame. Consistent in their quality and release, Telltale Games’ projects have regularly reviewed and sold well.

Naturally, it’s the management of the studio which falls under scrutiny. How come the poster child of successful episodic game development, which at some point looked like the future of gaming, can still fail this bad? As we reported some time ago, things behind the curtains at Telltale Games have been shaky for a long while now and most reports did indeed paint the management as the main culprit for that. It looks like even change of higher-up personnel couldn’t avoid the tragic outcome we are presented with.