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Shortly after it was announced that the Telltale brand has been relaunched, its web presence was relaunched as well. A few of the studio's catalogue titles are directly available again, letting us know which IPs that Jamie Ottilie and Brian Waddle, the men behind Telltale Redux, where able to snatch up. Behold the 2019 Telltale library, in the order the site presents it:

  • RGX Showdown
  • Batman The Enemy Within
  • Batman: The Telltale Series
  • The Wolf Among Us
  • Puzzle Agent 2
  • Hector: Badge of Carnage
  • Puzzle Agent

So, a smattering. And two of those games were merely published by Telltale, rather than developed. (Remi had to explain to me what RGX Showdown even was. It didn't take.) The highlight as far as I'm concerned is Nelson Tethers. Hopefully that means Graham Annable at least got a check outta all this hooey.

Happily, some decent person behind this revival (or maybe just our own Jennifer, going by the comments of the previous news post) has made it so that you can sign into Telltale with your old account and download your old purchases once again. I just logged into my account from January 18th, 2005 to confirm that. So take the second chance you've been handed and get your games if you failed the first time.

Source: Telltale

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. . . or at least the name is. Polygon reports TTG has been acquired by LCG Entertainment, and that, and I quote, "some of Telltale’s back catalog and will work on new games based on a few Telltale-associated properties, as well as new licenses." The Wolf Among Us, Batman, and Puzzle Agent are part of the roster.

We know some other assets have sailed off -- The Walking Dead for example -- and while there are murmurs of former employees coming back in some form or other, it's uncertain how Telltale-y this new Telltale will be. We shall see.

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GOG delisting Telltale is one thing, but Steam's another. In another instance of "We don't know when it'll be back, if ever," Telltale's Tales from the Borderlands is no longer available to buy on Steam.

I still have a hard time believing Telltale is gone, sometimes. Don't you?

Source: Steam

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Another shovelful of soil on Telltale Games's grave: GOG.com will be delisting their remaining games on Monday; Tales of Monkey Island is already gone. Sam and Max, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Puzzle Agent, the Telltale-published Hector: Badge of Carnage, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands will be following suit.

It is unclear when—or if—any of the games will be returning to the platform.

To quote GOG, "Sadly, we need to inform you that, due to company’s closure, all the remaining Telltale titles will be delisted from our catalog on Monday, May 27, 10am UTC."

Purchased games shall remain in your library.

If you're feeling wistful, listen to Mojo discuss Telltale's closure. You can buy the games here.

Source: GOG

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The documentary is out, we have whined about it not being comprehensive enough, and Jason has put pen to paper, as he is wont to do: Read his review of Telltale: The Human Stories Behind The Games, and then run and check out our podcast for the real goods.

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Noclip's documentary Telltale: The Human Stories Behind the Games is out today. As per the fear Jason voiced in the original news post two weeks ago, the documentary is indeed myopic, pretending that pre-Walking Dead Telltale wasn't a thing.

This is partially because of the format of the documentary, which has interview subjects candidly discuss life during their time at Telltale, and most (if not all) of these came on board after the switch.

It's an interesting watch, and one which will take on some more significance once/if the full story of Telltale's collapse emerges. Watch it here:

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Source: YouTube

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In late May, Noclip will be releasing a documentary on Telltale Games, conducted via interviews with former developers and interspersed with shots of both the old office and the post-Walking Dead-mania new one. It's called Telltale: The Human Stories Behind the Games; the trailer has a very US west coast feel to it (or so this non-American thinks):
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It's probably the kind of thing Mojo would make if we had a penny.

Source: Noclip

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Bad management killed Telltale Games. The studio's fall gets a write-up over on Game Informer, going in-depth about the post-Walking Dead delirium which saw the studio's two-act implosion last year. It's a good read, partially because its follow-up gives Kevin Bruner, the CEO who arguably steered Telltale into the iceberg, a voice.

Bruner's been on something of a redemption campaign—his Twitter is all nostalgic for the Telltale he helped close by suing, for example—and this does read like a continuation of that. But the portrait of Telltale painted is actually sordid.

Consider nuggets like this, for example, which ignore the very different feel you got playing, say, "They Stole Max's Brain!" (helmed by Mike Stemmle) than you did "The Penal Zone" (Chuck Jordan)...

I think one of the misconceptions is that Telltale was auteur-led, and what I mean is that [the games are envisioned by] myself or by particular individuals. One of the things that I take the most pride in is that for many people at Telltale, it was their first job. And we would give people a lot of responsibility really quickly for better and/or worse. But then team that made The Walking Dead was a different team than the team that made The Wolf Among Us, Borderlands, or Minecraft. The fact that people could come in and really do stellar work, particularly early in their career – I take a lot of pride in that.

...To, well, this:

We tried to create an environment where you really had to do that to survive at Telltale, because we didn’t have these three-year long production cycles. You would have to say, "You know, I need to go home and not work on the game that I care so deeply about and that I want to be the best game ever, because this is the chance I get to work on Batman or this is the chance I get to work on that or the other thing. I know they’re going to record my script in two days and I want it to be as good as it can be."

Managing that was really, really hard because everyone cared really deeply. The simple answer is: "Just take more time." A big studio costs a lot of money every day in order to open the doors. We didn’t have the option of taking more time even though that would have been the perfect thing to give to everybody. Everyone worked really hard because they were really passionate. We wanted to make the best content possible, which I think is what everybody does in the industry. I think the difference with Telltale was how relentless and ceaseless the content was.

As soon as you finished passionately working on an episode and you’re just like "I’m just going to put in a couple extra things to make sure it’s as good as possible," you turn around and there’s another scene that you’re like, "I want that to be good too." It really was ceaseless. We needed people to go home, and we encouraged people to go home, but it’s hard when you care.

Everybody knows you write great existential dialogue when you don't get to go home to see your family.

I think this all lends credence to that description of Bruner as a jealous Eye of Sauron. Ouch.

Read the original article here. Read the follow-up interview here.

Source: Game Informer

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Telltale imploded a little under seven months ago. Despite the odds, however, some ex-staff was taken on-board with Skybound Games (which consisted of a whopping five members at the time) to release The Walking Dead: The Final Season unto the world.

So how did they do it? Well, Gamespot released an interesting article on that during our (latest but not last) downtime. Good read. Has that annoying thing with auto-playing videos plus ads.

Skybound CEO Ian Howe had an interesting tidbit: "I will give huge credit to the management of Telltale who went out of their way and did everything they could to make this deal happen as quickly as it could. For exactly that reason to help those people out, so that I don't think that should get lost in this."

It's implied that it's Dan Connors and Pete Hawley he's referring to. Or maybe I'm wrong. Either way, give it a go.

Source: Gamespot

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Oh, hey, we're back -- your prayers worked!

So, what has been going on? Borderlands 3 has been announced, and while that probably means preciously little around these parts, some might be interested to hear Rhys, the protagonist in TTG's Tales from the Borderlands, is making an appearance in it. Troy Baker, the actor behind the character, might not be, mind you, which is odd. He did a great job in Telltale's episodic take on the franchise.

(And while many of our dozen readers might not have given Tales from the Borderlands a go, you probably should do so. It's a good game. (Although, I'm guessing not available anymore.))

Source: Gaming Bolt

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Well, here we are. Skybound Games has released the final episode of the final game from Telltale, The Walking Dead: The Final Season. It should be out on PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

The reviews are already pouring in, but we're pouring one out for Telltale.

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This is a bittersweet piece of news:

The final ever Telltale anything will be releasing on Tuesday, March 26th, although technically completed by Skybound Games. "Take Us Back," the fourth and final episode of The Walking Dead: The Final Season, will be appearing on consoles and PC.

"It’s time for the end. After years of fighting to survive, Clementine is now the leader of a community of lost children, and they’re depending on her to get them home safe," said Skybound in a press release, adding: "Her story comes to a dramatic and heart-wrenching climax in this final episode. The night will be over soon…"

I haven't played Walking Dead past the first season, but that does sound thrilling.

Anyway, pour one out for TTG, from Telltale Texas Hold 'Em and "The Great Cow Race," to "Culture Shock" and "What's New, Beelzebub?," through "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal" and "The City That Dares Not Sleep," to Nelson Tethers, to "A New Day," "It's About Time," and "A Crooked Mile" and finally to "Iron from Ice" through "Take Us Back." I should take the opportunity to note that Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures celebrates its tenth anniversary in three days (March 24th), and I, for one, would much rather remember that Telltale than the one that left over 200 employees without severance payment. Episode 3, "Muzzled!," was the first Sean Vanaman-penned Telltale release.

Source: Variety

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According to Variety, Ad Hoc studio has been founded by four former Telltale designers to continue the narrative game legacy into the future.

The four founders are Michael Choung, Dennis Lenart, Nick Herman, and Pierre Shorette. That's some heavy hitters right there. Hopefully, this batch of creative awesomeness leads to some excellent titles in the future. They're interested in developing live-action interactive narratives, which could be interesting.

Or maybe they'll be like Telltale and hone their craft on Sam and Max. One can only hope.

Source: Variety

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. . . and as does Telltale.

What do you mean you don’t care? Look, things have been beyond slow in the Mojoverse over the last few weeks, likely because we updated the site, and the world is against us. However, word has it Zaarin is completing two super exciting features this week, so hopefully we can post something other than . . . this . . . soon.

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It's no secret that The Wolf Among Us likely ranks as Mojo's favorite post Rodkin-era Telltale game, and the sequel was reservedly anticipated around these parts. Then, of course, Telltale did what it did, and here we are, Wolf-less, which might not be a bad thing if Eurogamer is anything to go by:

The Wolf Among Us' second season was one such casualty of Telltale's closure. The sequel to the critically-acclaimed adaptation of Bill Willingham's Fables series, Wolf Among Us 2 barely got started, so small and lacking in budget was the team working on it. "[The budget was] shoe-string, even by Telltale standards," said an ex-staff member. "Everybody knew Wolf 1 was a critical success, but not a commercial hit. I think people came into it realising they were making a boutique product. At one point the season was going to be three episodes."

Well, then . . . Another little tidbit:

"If something like The Walking Dead: Season Two did a fraction of sales of the first season, and the Michonne mini-series tanked, what made people think Season Three, let alone Season Four, was a good idea? After The Walking Dead: Season One, very few people from creative had any say about what projects the studio took on."

The hits just keep on coming.

Source: Eurogamer

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Some good news from the implosion of Telltale:

Former lead writer on The Walking Dead: The Final Season Mary Kenney is now at Insomniac Games, which recently returned to the spotlight after a successful Spider-Man game. She shared no details on what she's been working on.

Before The Final Season, Kenney worked on Batman: The Enemy Within, which Remi liked a whole lot more than he did the original series.

You can check-out some of her writing here. Prior to Telltale, Kenney created her own games and worked as a journalist, publishing articles in outlets like The New York Times.

Good luck to her from Mixnmojo—especially on not having too many severance-free sleepless nights at Insomniac. (Listen, if SNL can get away with making the same joke over and over again on one of their sketches, I can get away with making the same joke twice in a news story.)

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

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I don't know when it happened, but the music from Jerry Logas and the Pier 23 Reunion Band, which comprised the soundtrack to Telltale Texas Hold'em, is now available to hear and buy at Bandcamp.

Jerry Logas is the father of former Telltale designer Heather Logas. The Telltale team used his music in their first game, which was released in 2005, the year after they first were founded. Back then, they had a team about the size of the Skybound Games-employed crew that are working from the Telltale offices on The Walking Dead: The Final Season right now. But, of course, the company was much less dead back then.

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The Walking Dead: The Final Season is getting its penultimate episode, "Broken Toys," next January. Skybound Games released the episode 3 trailer today.
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Watch-out for a VO from an old (un)dead friend.

On the one hand, The Walking Dead is, at least, the final Telltale game, as opposed to that bizarre adaptation of Minecraft: Story Mode for Netflix; considering the impact the first season had on the company's trajectory, this is appropriate. (There's a joke here somewhere about it being the final nail in Telltale's coffin.) On the other, considering how The Walking Dead ends everything it touches, we best start making funeral preparations for Skybound Games.

Source: Skybound Games

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Proving that a simple bankruptcy cannot hold a closed company down, the three first episodes of Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode is now available on Netflix. I have not played the original, nor is this version something that sits high up on my list, but if you are wondering how it all works . . .

By using whatever device players have chosen to assist them when streaming the interactive experience, players can make choices while following the on-screen prompts to determine how the events will play out. Netflix’s page for the series said the final two episodes would be coming in December to round out the five-episode experience.

Yeah, I don’t even know, but feel free to give it a go.

Source: Comicbook

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I was browsing my GOG library in search of something to play and noticed I had new copies of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People and Tales of Monkey Island. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (who looks anything in the mouth besides dentists, anyway?), but I had to check there wasn't a mix-up. Imagine my delight when I found this:

We'd like to thank you for being a part of GOG.COM, a community of gamers who value DRM-free ideas and preserving our gaming heritage. As a token of our appreciation, something cool from your Wishlist has been added to your library for FREE – courtesy of GOG.COM.
Visit your Library, see what's new, and enjoy the game!

Well, two games. That does make me worry less about where on earth to store any purchases I made from the Telltale Games website. I'd suggest any readers here do the same; I suspect my status as a high-rolling InstagramMixnmojo influencer isn't the only reason I nabbed an extra chance to have that damn song stuck in my head.

Source: GOG

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