In September Telltale Studios, the developers behind acclaimed video game series The Walking Dead, suddenly laid off the majority of its employees without any notice or warning. However, it kept a “skeleton team” of about 2 dozen members that would be working for the studio for the foreseeable future. Now it has come to light that another team has been let go in another round of layoffs within the company.
Heeeeyyyy remember how there was going to be a skeleton crew staying on for a while and I was part of it? Nah, jk, we all just got laid off, too.
Advertisement— Retchel Necronoelicon (@anameformyself) October 4, 2018
The news was first shared by Rachel Noel on Twitter who worked at Telltale Games as a narrative designer. After her Tweet, the news quickly made rounds with many people believing that the entirety of the skeleton team, meaning all remaining employees, had been laid-off. However, this turned out to be false as Rachel later clarified in a follow-up Tweet that there are still good people working at the company but that her team was laid-off. She also said that she simply wanted to share the news with people and did not want to comment on the future of the company. For now, it seems that there are still people working there but who knows for how much longer.
I think there was some misunderstanding about my earlier message… There are still good people at the company. MY team is done.
— Retchel Necronoelicon (@anameformyself) October 4, 2018
Telltale’s demise as a company is something that has been coming for a while already. Rumors of mismanagement and a horrendous working culture have existed since the companies beginning and have once again been confirmed by Rachel in another Tweet that she has made.
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. 80-hour crunch weeks. Mismanagement of some of the industry’s top talent. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
— Retchel Necronoelicon (@anameformyself) October 4, 2018
Another reason for the company’s current situation was that their games were not pulling in large numbers of player anymore. Players were not interested in Telltale’s games anymore since the stories became less exciting and the choices became less meaningful.
Whether Clementine’s story will be finished or not is still left up in smoke, however, there seems to be hope as multiple other game development studios have already offered their assistance with finishing the remaining episodes of The Walking Dead. It would certainly be a shame if Clem’s story would never come to a proper end.
