Telltale Games revived by new ownership

The pioneers of episodic gaming, Telltale Games, have surprisingly announced their return to game development after collapsing last year.

Gamers the world over were left diasspointed following Telltale Games’ abrupt closure late last year. After adapting some of the biggest pop culture properties including The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Batman, Minecraft, and Guardians of the Galaxy, reports of ‘rapid mismanagement’ and a ‘toxic culture’ emerged online.

Shortly after, CEO Pete Hawley declared a ‘majority studio closure’ with 90% of its workforce (225 of 250 employees) being let go that very same day.

It marked a gloomy day in the community. The pioneers of interactive storytelling were officially dissolved, along with all their beloved properties and licences. Fans were particularly saddened by the discontinuation of The Wolf Among Us, having waited five years for a second season, just for it to be cancelled mere months before its scheduled release.

But now, after a brief stint in the grave, Telltale Games has been hoisted up, dusted down and prodded back into the limelight under the guise of LCG Entertainment. And there’s a strong possibility that Telltale’s back-catalogue will now be either sold to other developers or refreshed for today’s gaming by the new creators… either way, we’ll likely be seeing a second season of TWAU!

This restoration is being headed up by Jamie Ottile, the previous founder and CEO of Galaxy Pest Control – a studio best known for Duck Dynasty, Power Rangers Legends, and Hotel Transylvania 2 – and Brian Waddle, the head of sales and marketing for Havok at Intel, and later Microsoft. Impressive stuff. We’re in good hands people.

The duo claim they’ve hired and contracted ‘key talent’ from this previous iteration of the studio while outsourcing external devs for an improved animation and motion capture, meaning not only are we getting interactive storytelling back, we’re likely seeing the bar being raised for the genre going forward.