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Telltale Games, makers of The dead who walk adventure games and several other episodic series, have laid off many of its developers today and may be closing according to social media posts, a report of The edgeand one Kotaku source with knowledge of the material.
The speculations about the dismissals and the possible closure of the studio began when independent journalist Andrea Ayres tweeted the news that a developer friend had claimed that Telltale was closing down. This was followed by a narrative designer at the company, Emily Grace Buck, announce that she was out of work and that many of her developer friends were also looking for work. The edge reports that only 25 people are currently left at the studio, which previously employed hundreds of people. KotakuMr. M.'s source also stated that layoffs were widespread, but did not confirm the number of people who remained.
Telltale Games was founded by former LucasArts employees in 2004. His first game was Telltale Texas Hold'em, a poker simulator, followed by episodic games based on narration CSI TV show. It was not until 2012 that the studio found its first major release with The dead who walk. The choice-based narrative model based on studio choice was quickly applied to other popular licenses such as The fables comic series, batman and The iron Throne.
This new success, however, was also accompanied by reports on workplace toxicity and crisis conditions at the San Rafael, California-based company. In March 2017, Bruner, one of the studio's founders, stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Pete Hawley, former vice president of games at Zynga. This restructuring resulted in 90 layoffs in October 2017. USGamer reported the following month that these layoffs were part of an attempt by the management to reorient a company that was beyond its means.
In June of this year, Telltale seemed to take a turn, announcing a new collaboration with Netflix for a series of Strange things games, an agreement Variety reported was two years in the making. At the same time, Bruner brought a lawsuit against the studio, alleging in particular a mismanagement of its financial assets in the company, which the studio said at the time to be "without merit".
Telltale published the first episode of The Walking Dead: the final season In August, with the second episode scheduled for next week, September 25. We do not know yet if the rest of the game will come out as planned, or what will happen to other projects under development of the studio. Witness did not immediately respond when requested by Kotaku for more information.
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