It appears that Telltale Games is making an unlikely comeback after a company called LCG Entertainment purchased the shuttered studio’s assets.
The specifics of this arrangement are still being sorted out, but it sounds like LCG Entertainment intends to open a game development studio under the Telltale Games name. The studio will be headed by CEO Jamie Ottilie and CRO Brian Waddle. It seems that the resurrected studio’s executives are already reaching out to members of the former Telltale Games team in order to offer freelance work and possible full-time positions.
“All of us were big fans of the games Telltale created, as we strongly believe in games as a storytelling medium and nobody did it better,” says Ottilie. “Even now, when you see a game with strong narrative, it’s always compared to Telltale, so it’s no surprise that players and industry colleagues alike mourned the studio’s closure. We believe there is still so much life to the brand and its franchises, and we look forward to building upon the company’s storytelling legacy.”
What, exactly, is left of the Telltalle brand is the big question at the moment. Based on early information, it sounds like the new Telltale will retain the rights to properties like Puzzle Agents, The Wolf Among Us, and Batman. However, it does seem that they no longer have the rights to make Walking Dead games and probably won’t be getting those rights back anytime soon. The status of other major former Telltale properties is currently unknown. While we know that this new Telltale intends to sell some classic titles from the Telltale backlog, it’s also not clear at this time whether copyright conflicts will prevent them from selling some of the studio’s back catalog.
Advertisement
At this time, we also have no idea what the future of Telltale looks like in terms of the studio’s future games. Based on what has been revealed so far, it seems safe to say that future Telltale games will emulate the basic design style of previous popular projects. In other words, you can probably still expect Telltale games to emphasize narrative and decision making.
It’ll be particularly interesting to see whether or not this new Telltale fixes the engine problems that plagued many Telltale games, implements friendlier employee policies, and finds a way to innovate Telltale’s basic design formula in a way that helps new games to achieve the failed promises of the originals. Our gut says they will not.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.
Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!