Last week Telltale Games announced to be closing down its studios and laid off 250 of its workers, keeping behind a two dozen employees to help finish the final project; Minecraft: Story Mode. News of the studios shutting down also brought in rumors that The Walking Dead: Final Season was also abandoned and the last two episodes would not be releasing.
Telltale Games have however said in a recent tweet that potential partners have stepped up to offer a way out to end the series and resume the production of the last two episodes of The Walking Dead: Final Season.
“Multiple potential partners have stepped forward to express interest in helping to see The Final Season through to completion,” Telltale Games wrote in a tweet. “While we can’t make any promises today, we are actively working towards a solution that will allow episodes 3 and 4 to be completed and released in some form. In the meantime, episode 2 will release tomorrow across all platforms as planned.”
This doesn’t mean the production of the final two episodes have begun, as Telltale Games has confirmed that with the help of these potential partners the project could be completed, and that there appears to be interest from around the industry to back the project. However, it is too early to confirm who might come in and help Telltale complete The Walking Dead: Final Season.
If Telltale can strike a deal with any partner, this will mean that the narrative adventure could be released, but at the expense of 250 employees having lost their job without any severance pay. This is news that was confirmed by the employees themselves who were laid off.
Finally, the tweet from Telltale raises more questions in the gaming industry, with majority of the questions targeting Telltale to first pay the severance to its employees before it can resume the project with a new partner. This comes in response after employees have also been reported to have been left looking for new jobs and to find some kind of safety net.
I would hope this means that you will first pay your entire team their severance, and then proceed to finish the final episodes. I would be fine waiting however long it took to ensure we first treated those who worked so hard with the humanity and respect they deserve.❤️
— the fake cory balrog (@corybarlog) September 25, 2018
As much as I would love this as a fan of this series since day one, I would much rather your partners find a way to pay severance to the 200+ employees that lost their jobs #TellTaleJobs
— Tatum (@NoWayRyanTatum) September 25, 2018
I'm sorry, but this seems gross. Will proceeds go to fired employees without severance pay? And who are these scab studios jumping in? https://t.co/u6F2uvBqeh
— David Milner (@DaveMilbo) September 25, 2018
Not to bother, but I’m just curious- How does this work when the reason we were given that we didn’t get severance, and that this layoff didn’t violate WARN was that Telltale was going through a “complete financial shutdown”? https://t.co/HnlDtmqsrN
— Emily Grace Buck plz hire TTG devs! (@emilybuckshot) September 25, 2018
