News broke earlier today that Telltale Games suddenly laid off the majority of its staff in preparation to abruptly shut down the game development studio. The question left hanging was what this would mean for The Walking Dead: The Final Season, which has only released one out of four of its planned episodes as of yet. Now it appears that fans of Clementine's adventure will never see the end of it.
According to an anonymous source speaking with US Gamer, The Walking Dead: The Final Season will be axed following the release of its second episode. This will no doubt come as a huge surprise to fans, as The Walking Dead was perhaps the most notable - and best-selling - game series that Telltale has ever produced. At this time, Telltale Games itself has not confirmed or denied this claim.
In addition to The Walking Dead, all other projects that Telltale was already working on or planning to produce have also been canceled, with the exception of Minecraft Story Mode. It's unclear why that one project survived, except that it may have been due to the fact that it was being produced for Netflix. A contract between the two companies may have forced Telltale's hand to keep that project open until the studio's complete shuttering.
Fans of the series should still expect to see the release of The Walking Dead's second episode, which is set to drop in mere days. With the original schedule releasing an episode every six weeks, it comes as a surprise that the studio wouldn't make an effort to at least complete the season, especially since it had previously suggested that the end of Clementine's story might not be the studio's final take on The Walking Dead.
Gamers who have faithfully played the long-running The Walking Dead series and those who were looking forward to the return of The Wolf Among Us, along with other new projects like Stranger Things, are no doubt disappointed and even bitter about it. They're not alone, as some of the employees of Telltale are also speaking out about the sudden firing and closure of the studio after years of dedication to the studio.
Telltale's The Walking Dead: Final Season's second episode should launch on September 25th for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One, after which no further updates are planned.
Source: US Gamer