The unexpected fall of Telltale Games in 2018 was a shock to many, prompting questions about the future of the studio's trademark style of narrative-heavy adventure games. Indeed, the final season of Telltale's The Walking Dead series was picked up by another studio, but beyond that was a looming hole in the game industry left by the studio's sudden closure. Now, former Telltale developers are banding together to create a new studio, giving hope to fans of Telltale's unique story-driven content.
Variety is reporting that the newly-formed video game studio is called AdHoc Studio, and is comprised of four ex-Telltale devs who hope to further the Telltale tradition of making interactive games with prominent narratives. AdHoc's chief operating officer and former Telltale creative director Nick Herman says that discussions about forming a new studio began while the team was still employed by Telltale. Apparently, the team felt a desire to expand on the potential of interactive stories with a smaller, bolder team of developers.
The founding members of Adhoc are Herman, former creative director Dennis Lenart, former director of writing Pierre Shorette, and Lead Writer Michael Choung. The team joined together after Herman, Lenart, and Shorette failed in their efforts to form a new studio under Ubisoft in 2017, then decided to take matters into their own hands with Choung as AdHoc's CEO.
“Having to pitch something that ultimately fifty people need to understand and approve means a lot of the more adventurous or risky ideas often die early on for a bunch of different reasons,” says Lenart, AdHoc’s chief technology officer. “We liked the idea that if it was just the four of us, we’d be able to more confidently wade into unfamiliar water."
As far as what this all means for the content AdHoc's planning on producing, little is known for certain. Perhaps even less certain is whether the studio's future projects will be strictly considered video games. Instead, it sounds like AdHoc is going to focus on live-action interactive experiences in a similar vein to Netflix's Bandersnatch, which Herman says, "seems to have scratched an itch that people didn’t quite know that they had.”
“It feels like we’re at the precipice of a big shift in how we consume media where the lines between film, television, and games are starting to blur,” Shorette, AdHoc’s chief creative officer, says. “With streaming platforms in our homes and cell phones in our pockets we’re in this unique time where the barrier to entry to interaction is gone. So as a group of people whose expertise and experience has come from making Interactive Narrative that sits in that space between, we feel now is the perfect time to form a studio that focuses on creating content for a new space.”
The future of these four ex-Telltale developers and their new studio is sure to excite passionate Telltale fans, but perhaps just as interesting are details shared by former employees of the now-defunct studio. For example, one anonymous Telltale dev revealed a common sentiment behind the scenes that The Wolf Among Us 2 would never see the light of day.
Given the abrupt announcement that Telltale would be laying off the majority of its staff, the studio's following closure was undoubtedly one of gaming's most shocking events in 2018. Hopefully the small team at AdHoc is able to capture the magic left behind by Telltale's influence and thrive in whichever market they choose to pursue.
Source: Variety