Mike Reitemeier
Mike ReitemeierTelltale Games’ resurgence has hit another roadblock, as on 3/1, the company announced yet another delay for the highly-anticipated follow-up to The Wolf Among Us. This time it seems to be delayed out of 2023. The news came as a shock to players since this is not the first delay the game has seen to this point. In addition, correspondence for the game has been few and far between, as Telltale typically says that they’re “not ready” to share more information about the game. After all these years of development, what does this mean for the game, and for Telltale Games itself?
To say Telltale has had it rough in recent years is nothing short of an understatement. The juggernaut of adventure gaming, series like The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Minecraft all got comprehensive, acclaimed stories to experience over the 2010s. Unfortunately, in 2018, after restructuring and massive layoffs, Telltale all but folded until LCG Entertainment was able to acquire assets and get the company back into the swing of things. This culminated in a 2019 Game Awards announcement for The Wolf Among Us 2, but it’s been sparse in the way of details ever since.
For Telltale to relaunch and not be able to launch a product within 4 years is troublesome. Paying employees for that amount of time without any concrete revenue stream means that when The Wolf Among Us 2 eventually sees its launch, it will have to move an unreal amount of units to recoup development costs. With The Expanse targeting a summer launch, this may bolster the company and boost morale.
Thankfully, within the delay statement, it’s clear that Telltale does not want to release a rush job. No crunch is expected, and that’s worth a sigh of relief for those that know the horrors of 100-hour work weeks within the industry. Here’s hoping for a smooth launch when The Wolf Among Us 2 is finally ready.
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1 Comment
Elizabeth Olson
March 4, 2023 - 3:08 amHi, Mike – thanks for the coverage, though I think you’ve made some assumptions. 1) no concrete revenue stream – we actually earn a steady revenue from the back catalog, which is not to say we didn’t need to raise money (we just closed $8M in series A funding) 2) That it’s been 4 years w/no product — kind of? We relaunched the company Aug 2019 and announced the game was in pre-production Dec 2019, but we were far from fully staffed. As the IGN article explains, we announced that early for funding, licensing & hiring reasons. So the pandemic hit us hard, trying to stand up the company, hire and learn to work together remotely having never been “together” 3) That we’ve had multiple delays – this is actually THIS company’s first delay 4) Why don’t we do more updates – building new assets takes team bandwidth & budget, and since we were lean on both (we are only 20-25 people), we only do updates when we have something significant to say 5) But that doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting on our asses – our first game, The Expanse: A Telltale Series is set to launch this Summer and I hope you’ll consider covering it. Thanks for letting me set the record straight. Elizabeth Olson, Dir. of Markeitng & PR, Telltale