In probably some of the most shocking gaming news of the year, Telltale Games has confirmed they are preparing to shut their doors. The narrative focused developer has laid off 90% of its studio and is down to 25 people on the team. Employees were officially dismissed earlier today, sending rumbles throughout the industry this afternoon.
Telltale is now just using a skeleton crew to finish the final season of The Walking Dead before closing its door meaning all other games like The Wolf Among Us Season 2 are dead. While they still intend on hitting their initial release schedule, sources say the quality of the remaining Walking Dead episodes will drop drastically given the lack of funds to do revisions.
Sources are also claiming this is the fault of bankruptcy and a Netflix partnership which was reported about earlier this year would’ve helped keep the developer afloat but it fell through. Telltale’s Batman series was allegedly a commercial failure for the studio and one of Telltale’s worst performing games financially.
Telltale has released an official statement confirming the layoffs and the beginning of the end for the studio.
“It’s been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course,” said CEO Pete Hawley. “Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the industry.”
Telltale’s been a name in the industry for quite some time but really blew up this decade following the game of the year winning first season of The Walking Dead. The studio was known for their emotional, character-driven stories set within famous IPs like Borderlands, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Minecraft.
We’ll continue to update this story if we hear more.
