telltale-games-reportedly-laid-off-several-employees-in-september

Telltale Games Reportedly Laid Off Several Employees In September

The Wolf Among Us 2 is coming in 2023 from Telltale and WB.

Image Credit: Telltale Games

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Telltale Games allegedly laid off several staff members at the beginning of September, according to former cinematic artist Jonah Huang. Huang said on X that the developer laid off “most of us” and specified that he couldn’t speak about the status of The Wolf Among Us 2, the project on which he was working, due to a non-disclosure agreement.

This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can’t say (NDA).

Now, I focus on what matters to me—my own game, and the following words:

Games industry, we must UNIONIZE.

1/5

— jjonahjonahson (@jjonahjonahson) October 5, 2023

Huang added that he signed a no-harm agreement as part of his severance, saying, “But I am legally allowed to speak on behalf of being laid off, and this statement of fact is sincerely not an attempt to cause harm or ruination to the company.” He said that he re-joined Telltale to work on The Wolf Among Us 2 with a very small team, and the layoffs happened within weeks of the company acquiring Flavourworks.

Telltale confirmed the layoffs (though not the number) in a statement to GamesBeat, saying, “Due to current market conditions, we regrettably had to let some of our Telltale team go recently. We did not take this action lightly, and our commitment to storytelling and finding new ways to do so remains the same. We are grateful to everyone for their dedication along this journey, and we are working to support everyone impacted. All projects currently in development are still in production, and we have no further updates at this time.”

Telltale joins a large number of gaming companies who have recently laid off staff members, including Epic Games, Team17, Striking Distance, Bioware, Crystal Dynamics, CD Projekt Red, Niantic and several studios owned by Embracer. Telltale itself closed suddenly in 2018, laying off most, if not all of its staff. It was reopened in 2019 after LCG Entertainment acquired its assets.

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