It feels like the game industry Layoffs sadly will not stop. Telltale Games is next on the chopping block as the studio has confirmed that it had let go some of the team while blaming the decision on current “market conditions.”
The word on Telltale Games layoffs first made the round after former Telltale cinematic artist Jonah Huang tweeted that the studio let go of team members in early September. It seems like Telltale Games is downplaying the number of studio layoffs as the company stated that “some” of the Wolf Among Us 2 team were let go rather than “most” of the team, as stated by Huang on Twitter. Either way, we still don’t have an exact number of the layoffs.
“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 Games said in a statement.
This was sadly not Huang’s first Telltale Games layoff, as the game artist was a part of the first iteration of Telltale Games that was closed down in 2018. The Telltale Games name returned in late 2019 at the Game Awards, revealing that a second Wolf Among Us game was happening, thanks to LCG Entertainment reviving the company. The release of Wolf Among Us 2 was slated for this year but was delayed to 2024 to avoid burnout and crunch, alongside the struggle to port the games from Unreal Engine 4 to 5, according to IGN.
The news from the point-and-click adventure game developer comes off the heels of a series of similar layoffs from this year, including Riot Games, Meta’s Ready at Dawn and Downpour Studios, Deviation Games, Relic Entertainment, Brace Yourself Games, Emracer Group, Striking Distance Studios, Team 17, BioWare, Naughty Dog, and much more. In the initial tweet, Huang called for the game industry to unionize.
