Telltale Games reportedly laid off a number of employees last month.

The claim was made by cinematic artist Jonah Huang, who posts on Twitter as ‘J Jonah Jonahson’.

Huang worked at the previous incarnation of Telltale Games, and was a cinematic artist on such titles as The Walking Dead: Michonne, Minecraft: Story Mode, Batman: The Telltale Series and Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series.

Telltale closed down in 2018, letting go almost all of its staff one day without warning.

When the Telltale Games brand returned in 2019 under new ownership, Huang was hired again, seemingly to work on The Wolf Among Us 2.

“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,” Huang tweeted.

He then stated that he couldn’t comment on the status of The Wolf Among Us 2, because he’s under a non-disclosure agreement.

He added: “I signed an agreement not to cause any harm to Telltale’s business as part of my severance package. 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.

“This is a departure from what I usually post, which is just pixel art / stuff about my game. But this is extremely important to me, as someone that genuinely cares about the people who works in games. I hate seeing abuse and exploitation continue.”

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 re-joined Telltale because he was a fan of the original The Wolf Among Us and wanted to work on the sequel.

“Our team was very small and I was genuinely excited for the game,” he said, adding: “Telltale has yet to publicise any of what has happened.”

Huang concluded by noting that Telltale recently acquired UK studio Flavourworks, adding: “Again, I’m not saying this in an attempt to hurt the business. I’m just saying the facts of how it felt to be laid off: it was a real bummer. I guess it was a silent precursor to the past two weeks.”

When Huang says Telltale laid “most of” the staff off, it’s not clear whether he means most Telltale employees in general, or most of the team working on The Wolf Among Us 2 specifically.

The Telltale claim is the latest in a stream of mass layoffs taking place across the games industry this year.

Earlier this week it was reported that Team17 is planning “significant” job losses as part of a company restructure. Last week it was announced that Epic Games would be laying off 16% of its staff, consisting of “around 830 employees”.

Earlier this year Microsoft confirmed plans to lay off approximately 10,000 employees, including some at Xbox and Bethesda.

CD Projekt Red also announced plans in July to lay off around 10% of its staff, with CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński stating that the company wants to have “teams that are more agile and more effective”.

Layoffs have also recently been occurring at a number of other companies, including Unity, Riot Games, Blizzard, Crystal Dynamics, Bioware and The Callisto Protocol studio Striking Distance.

Posted: Oct 09, 2023 9:07 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/telltale-games-reportedly-laid-off-a-number-of-employees-last-month/