Telltale Games

About

Telltale Games is a video game company which became well known for a style of adventure game in which players role play characters in popular intellectual properties (i.e. The Walking Dead, Batman) and progress through a story's events using dialogue trees and quick time events, with the developments of the plot being directly related to how a player reacts and responds. The company nearly folded completely in 2018 but its assets were purchased by LCG Entertainment, which relaunched the company in August of 2019.

History

Telltale Games was founded by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, former LucasArts employees who started Telltale after LucasArts began moving away from adventure games in 2004.^[1] The company pioneered an episodic-style of releasing games, starting with the Sam and Max series. After their success with Sam and Max, the company expanded into developing episodic games with small intellectual properties, Wallace and Gromit and Homestar Runner.

The company had its breakout with its Walking Dead series of games. The games, based on the comic book, introduced what would become the hallmark style of Telltale Games, with dialogue choices and quicktime events affecting outcomes of the story. The games were a critical success, garnering an 89/100 on Metacritic,^[2] with critics praising the game's powerful story and unique approach. The critical and financial success of the game helped Telltale gain access to multiple major IPs, including Game of Thrones, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy, and others, each of which received similar games to The Walking Dead.

However, with the influx of major IP projects came a heavy focus on crunch, which damaged company morale. Additionally, many of the major-IP releases created by Telltale turned out to be financial failures. These failures led to Telltale letting go 225 employees in September of 2018, which appeared to mark the end for Telltale.

Revival

In late August of 2019, LCG Entertainment announced it had purchased the assets of Telltale and was looking to rehire former staff in freelance positions.^[3] The news was met with cautious optimism, as some were wary that LCG Entertainment investors Jamie Ottilie and Brian Waddle were not a part of the original Telltale. Telltale still has rights to rights to licensed properties The Wolf Among Us and Batman, while the status other former IPs under Telltale's control Borderlands, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy and Minecraft were not announced.

Search Interest

External References