Last year, Telltale Games caused a major stir in the gaming industry when they abruptly laid off the majority of their workforce before ceasing operations. Now, Polygon reports that LCG Entertainment, in partnership with Athlon Games, purchased Telltale’s rights and assets from creditors to “revive” the company. The executives and founders of the original company, who are currently battling a class action lawsuit, are not a part of this venture.
The new version of Telltale Games will be headquartered in Malibu, CA and will be led by Brian Waddle and Jamie Ottilie, neither of whom worked for the original entity. Ottilie told Polygon that the company will have back catalog rights to licenses properties like The Wolf Among Us and Batman as well as original Telltale games. He believes the adventure game industry will continue to grow, so he wants this company to evolve Telltale’s previously established episodic model to fit current media consumption habits like marathon watching shows.
Disappointingly, former Telltale employees are only being offered freelance roles with the ambiguous possibility of full-time positions later on. The announcement has drawn mixed reactions from fans with some expressing their excitement for a familiar brand’s return while many others feel it’s an opportunistic move to use Telltale’s name for industry leverage. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
please don’t support the reanimated corpse of Telltale Games. they laid off their entire staff, got snapped up by shady millionaires, and now they’re hiring people back as freelancers without benefits. get your games elsewhere https://t.co/hiaGyubb7v
— Ryan Boyd (@ryandroyd) August 28, 2019
They..are…BACK @telltalegames ?? #telltalegames #thewalkingdead pic.twitter.com/hPX2wdIBvq
— The Walking Dead (@TWDGameNews) August 28, 2019
One thing is for sure: there will not be any Walking Dead nor Stranger Things games coming from Telltale. Skybound Entertainment stepped in to finish Clementine’s epic apocalypse arc while Stranger Things rights are now completely back in the hands of Netflix. Right now, it’s not clear what will happen with ongoing licences for properties like Game of Thrones, Minecraft, and Guardians of the Galaxy, so fans will have to patiently wait for that news.
Image: Telltale Games