Telltale Games has announced that it has laid off 25 percent of its core staff, effective immediately. These lay-offs affect approximately “90 people across all divisions.” This is part of a major company restructure process that is aimed at making Telltale Games not just the “leader in player-driven narrative games”, but also more “competitive as a developer and publisher of groundbreaking story-driven gaming experiences.”
Telltale Games Restructure – How Will This Affect Batman Season 2 and The Walking Dead?
With such a significant amount of staff laid off for this restructure, there may be cause for concern as to the future of Telltale games like Batman: The Enemy Within and the Telltale Walking Dead series. Worry not, though, as the statement released by Telltale Games goes on to state that “these changes are not expected to impact” any of the previously announced projects.
Also: Telltale Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 1 Review
Telltale Games CEO Pete Hawley has released a statement on these major lay-offs saying:
Our industry has shifted in tremendous ways over the past few years. The realities of the environment we face moving forward demand we evolve, as well, reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team.
He later notes that Telltale Games is working hard to assist its former employees and their families in finding new employment and navigating this difficult transition as quickly as possible. This shift in structure will allow Telltale Games to move internal development to more proven technologies and work with new partners that will affect future games.
It remains to be seen what those partnerships could like, whether it’s simply using a new engine to power all of Telltale’s episodic adventure games, or new projects entirely. The currently announced projects that Telltale Games is working on include Guardians of the Galaxy that concluded today, Minecraft Story Mode, the aforementioned Batman: The Enemy Within, and the fourth and final season for the Telltale Walking Dead series.
