First announced at The Game Awards earlier this month, Telltale will be bringing a new series to its catalog.The Expanse: A Telltale Serieswill be developed by Deck Nine, the studio behind this year’s beloved installment in theLife is Strangeseries,True Colors. However, as many keeping tabs on the gaming industry already know, Telltale Games has a troubled history, having caused one of the biggest gaming controversies in recent years.
Because of this, gamers have the right to be skeptical about upcoming releases under the Telltale brand. However, there are possible reasons to supportTelltale’s new game and get excited about the release or choose to take the sides of the former developers that were wronged and be concerned about the company’s future in the industry.
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The Closure of Telltale Games
In 2018,Telltale unexpectedly announced a “major studio closure,“letting go about 90 percent of its workforce at the time (estimated to be around 225 to 250 employees) while the few employees left were kept on as a skeleton crew to finish a few pressing projects at the time. This was not only a huge shock to the industry, but to the employees who seemingly had no idea the state that the company was in at the time. They were given no warning prior to the layoff, were forced to leave the building within the next 30 minutes, and were not given severance, incurring a class-action lawsuit for violating workforce regulations such as the WARN Act and California’s requirement of a 60-day notice prior to mass layoffs.
To add insult to injury, after releasingThe Walking Dead: The Final Season’s second episode (out of four) as scheduled a few days later, many skeleton crew employees would also be laid off in a similar manner. Along withThe Wolf Among Us: Season Two, Telltale’s most anticipated title was the final season ofThe Walking Dead, which lead to Skybound Entertainment (publisher of the comic series) working with Telltale’s original development team to finish off the game. After digital storefronts removed some Telltale products from their marketplaces, some companies would go on to rerelease titles under a different publishing name. For example,Gearbox rereleasedTales from the Borderlandsearly this year.
Because of the sudden and ruthless nature that the majority of the staff of Telltale Games was let go, a sour taste was left in the gaming industry. Furthermore, it seems that many former Telltale employees are still owed money by the company, which makes it odd that a company would choose to do business under the tainted name.
The Revival of Telltale Games
The year after Telltale’s closure, LCG Entertainment acquired many of its assets, and nearly a year after the company filed for assignment (similar to filing for bankruptcy), it announced that it would do business as Telltale Games moving forward. Some properties such asStranger ThingsandThe Walking Deadwere returned to their original owners, but it retains the rights toThe Wolf Among UsandBatman. Though a sequel to the former franchise was announced at The Game Awards 2019, little information is known about the project. This would makeThe Expanseits only other ongoing project currently known to the public.
Many have voiced concerns about LCG assuming the Telltale name to build on old assets, the most important being that the company should pay outstanding debts to the former Telltale staff that fell victim to its closure or offer them positions if desired. Others have called for a boycott on any games released under the Telltale name. Furthermore, LCG’s plan is to keep the majority of its worker base freelance for the foreseeable future, which is risky and unsupportive for a company based in California, a state with one of the highest costs of living in the country.
However, other than former Telltale employees that were brought on as freelancers, the new Telltale insists that it doesn’t have ties with the former company and plans to execute business differently, such as “not growing too fast to be able to manage costs better,” where many issues had stemmed from previously. It also hopes to promote a stable environment free ofcrunch culture, but it wouldn’t be the first company to say this without following through on the promise.
Still, it’s following the old trends, now having acquired the rights to make a video game series based onThe Expansefranchise. Telltale had similarly done this withThe Walking Dead,Game of Thrones,Batman,Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic Park, and more. However, Deck Nine, which had releasedLife is Strange: True Colorsthis year to high praise, is working onThe Expanse,which could help the publishing company down a brighter path. If not, it could lead to more broken hearts and unemployed game developers
