Today, The Verge reported that the developer behind The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales From The Borderlands, Batman, and more have suffered massive layoffs, and the company now only has 25 employees. According to sources that The Verge spoke with, employees that were laid off received no severance. According to some reports, after Telltale Games has finished The Walking Dead: The Final Season, it will close its doors.
That means that projects such as The Wolf Among Us Season 2, Game of Thrones Season 2, and a Stranger Things game would all be canceled.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Telltale Games has suffered layoffs. Last November, they got rid of 25% of its workforce, laying off 90 employees. These recent layoffs come after news that the studio wasn’t in good place and was overworking its employees. Also, in June, co-founder and former CEO Kevin Bruner sued the company seeking recovery of financial damages.
Next week, The second episode of The Walking Dead: The Final Season, Suffer the Children is set to premiere. The release dates for the episode can be found here. As of now, there is no word if there will be any delays or shifts to the release dates of the final two episodes Broken Toys and Take Us Back.
Sadly, it seems like this is the end for Telltale Games who brought back the adventure game genre back into the spotlight. Ever since it released its take on The Walking Dead, everyone became enraptured with its story; they followed Telltale Games as it told many other interesting stories in a variety of other places.
Hopefully, anyone affected by these recent layoffs can find a way to bounce back from this and continue their careers in the video game industry in a way that will hopefully leave this dark chapter behind.
UPDATE 9/21
Telltale Games has released a statement on the news. Pete Hawley, the CEO had this to say.
It’s been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. 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 positive 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 games industry.
Kevin Bruner, co-founder, and former CEO also released a statement commenting on the news of Telltale’s closure.