Telltale Games restarts and takes several licenses with it

Telltale Games makes a new start. The studio behind the Walking Dead games, among others, has been bought by a new publisher and continues with a selection of old titles, as well as new ones.

The studio is being revived by LCG Entertainment, which has acquired Telltale after the studio had to shut down last year due to lack of money. The new studio is led, among others, by Jamie Ottilie of the publisher Galaxy Pest Control. He tells Polygon that some former Telltale employees will continue to work in the company on a freelance basis, and may be able to get permanent positions in the future.

The relaunch of Telltale means that work can continue on old and new games. The acquisition by LCG Entertainment also bought the rights to games such as The Wolf Among Us and Batman. Also, the studio still owns the rights to its own games such as Puzzle Agent. However, other licenses like The Walking Dead and the announced Stranger Things game have gone to other studios. Ottilie tells Polygon that some storylines that were not yet finished with the restart can still be developed, although he does not say which games it concerns.

Ottilie says the new company will look at “episodic content” in a different way, for which old Telltale was known. “We’ll probably keep thinking in chapters, but we’re going to release them at a different pace,” he says. He specifically mentions the changed media landscape, in which binge watching is becoming more and more normal. Previously, Telltale wouldn’t release new chapters of its games until weeks or even months apart.

Telltale Games closed its doors last year when it turned out that the company was not doing well financially. According to Ottilie, this was mainly due to poor business operations and management. “The market for storytelling games is still very strong. Our industry should have a company that specializes in such story-driven games.”