Two Telltale employees reveal on terms of anonymity that The Walking Dead: The Final Season’s Episode 3 was nearly finished at the time of the company’s closure.
For many, the announcement that Telltale was closing its doors was heart-breaking, especially for those who worked there that got caught off-guard. For gamers, this meant anticipated titles such as Stranger Things and the sequel to the Wolf Among Us would never be fulfilled, but many asked what would become of The Walking Dead: The Final Season as its release was on-going.
It was revealed that Telltale is seeking other companies to pick up and finish the final two episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season, but two current employees speaking on terms of anonymity further revealed that the third episode was, in fact, nearly finished. More than that, however, the employees went on to explain Telltale’s plan: the company is seeking another company to hire former Telltale employees to finish the game on contract, which would bypass issues of getting additional funds for development but not paying severance to recently laid-off employees.
According to this anonymous source, it wouldn’t require much to finish the next two episodes, as episode 3 was nearly done and episode 4 has undergone one round of voice acting. As far as Episode 3 goes, it turns out it was scheduled for a ratings review on the very day the layoffs happened. For the uninitiated, this happens in the final stages of development prior to platform certification and ESRB rating.
At most, it simply needed a couple of weeks to fine-tune. For Episode 4, a playable version was supposed to be ready by the end of September, though this would have been early development. In fact, a former developer has also gone on record to say, “The script was strong and the whole team was excited about how we were finishing out Clem’s story.” This was evident by strong writing present in Episode 2: Suffer the Children.
That quote may be a knife to the gut for Clementine diehards, as Episode 2 had a solid ending that set up the tone for the coming two episodes. However, despite Telltale’s desires to see former employees hired by another company to finish out this project, it becomes unlikelier as time marches on. After all, ex-employees are likely proactively seeking employment after a surprise termination without severance.
Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Final Season‘s second episode launched on September 25 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One, after which no further updates are currently known.
