Telltale Games will reportedly not finish final season of The Walking Dead

Yesterday, after several hours of confusion and upset, acclaimed developer Telltale Games announced they will soon shut their doors. After reducing their staff of roughly 250 people to a skeleton crew of 25, many speculated that the few remaining staff members would be there to finish up the final season of The Walking Dead but that may not be the case.

New reports are coming in suggesting that Telltale Games’ staff will release The Walking Dead’s upcoming episode but after that, it’s over. That means the second episode will likely not have a proper conclusion and will likely leave us all wondering what the hell was going to happen.

In Telltale’s official statement yesterday, they noted the remaining staff was working on fulfilling obligations to the board and partners and sources are suggesting that Netflix may have been one of those members of the board/partners. Other sources stated yesterday that the Netflix deal fell through earlier this year and was part of the reason why Telltale Games was shutting its doors but it seems that may not be 100% accurate.

According to a new report from Matt Kim at USGamer, the entirety of The Walking Dead team was laid off yesterday and this week’s new episode will mark the end of the series. The remaining members of Telltale are working on a version Minecraft: Story Mode for Netflix which is presumably the last thing that’ll come from the studio before it shuts down.

A lot of this blindsided the team at Telltale as they were all let go without advanced notice and no severance package was given to the employees. A number of former employees have expressed their sadness and anger, the industry has gathered together to find jobs for whoever they can and Ubisoft will even be hosting a lunch for former Telltale staff to help them find jobs.

The future of all of Telltale’s franchises remain in question, while they’re canceled under Telltale’s management, many are hopeful other developers will swoop in and acquire the rights to finish them off.