The sudden, shocking closure of Telltale Games last week was deeply disappointing for fans of its games, including The Wolf Among Us, Tales From the Borderlands, and The Walking Dead. That last one is a particularly stinging loss because The Walking Dead: The Final Season, which would conclude Clementine's narrative, just got underway in August and will almost certainly go unfinished. 

But designer Emily Grace Buck, whose credits at Telltale include TWD: The Final Season, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy, posted a series of tweets after the closure was confirmed to remind everyone that the real damage runs much deeper. Roughly 250 Telltale employees were let go with no severance pay, she said, a figure slightly higher than initial counts, and many of them were contractors, meaning that they're not eligible for unemployment. Their workplace health coverage, which is particularly vital in the US, will also be cut off just one week after the closure. 

Even uglier is that according to Buck, Telltale had new employees starting work at the studio just a week prior to the shutdown announcement, some of whom had relocated for their jobs. At least one former employee is a foreign national on a work visa, who will have to leave the US "within days" as a result of the closure. 

"Due to the insanely high cost of living in the Bay Area relative to payscale, many of my (unbelievably skilled and talented!!!) colleagues were living paycheck to paycheck and do not know what they are going to do to make ends meet this month," she wrote. 

Buck also confirmed that the second season of The Wolf Among Us is canceled, as is the Stranger Things project, although Netflix still wants to push ahead with that elsewhere. The second episode of The Walking Dead: The Final Season is expected to release on schedule, but there's no real hope of it proceeding beyond that point: Melissa Hutchinson, who provides the voice of Clementine, suggested yesterday that the game will not be finished, and former season lead designer Michael Kirkbride was somewhat more definite about it on Reddit, encouraging fans to "at least give the [second] episode a try, even if it'll be uniquely placed in the tragic history of Telltale's efforts." 

"We know it’s weird, we know it sucks, we know it’s sad in ways that’s almost impossible to articulate, and we know it’s awful that we can’t tell you what would’ve happened after, but the episode is also just goddamn good, and the best feeling we could have right now is to know it’s being played," he wrote. 

Echoing Kirkbride's statement about not being able to share Telltale's plan for the remainder of The Final Season, Buck also shot down a suggestion that the script be shared online, so players can at least find out what happened.   

Melissa Hutchison, who provided the voice for Clementine in The Walking Dead as well as characters in other Telltale releases like Puzzle Agent, Back to the Future, and The Wolf Among Us, has written a sad farewell to the studio that recently confirmed a majority closure. She writes, "I, unfortunately, like most of you, do not have the details on how this all came to be and I also do not know the fate of the final season of TWD. To my knowledge, they will release Episode 2 and then that will be it."

This lines up with US Gamer's reporting. "Our sources say The Walking Dead Final Season is set to end after the second episode launches next week", they wrote.

The second episode of the season, which was apparently completed before the closure was announced, is due for release on September 25. At least one player who bought the full season has managed to get a refund from Steam.

According to an official statement from the studio, "Telltale will issue further comments regarding its product portfolio in the coming weeks."

Telltale has detailed how long we'll have to wait in-between instalments of its latest episodic adventure, The Walking Dead: The Final Season.

In a tweet from the company's official Twitter account, the developer confirmed there'll be roughly six weeks between each chapter, culminating in the final episode—called Take Us Back—which is expected to release just in time for the holidays on December 18, 2018.

The two other instalments between episode one and the final chapter—cheerfully entitled Suffer the Children and Broken Toys—will release on September 25 and November 6 respectively.

Naturally, even the best laid plans may come undone and it's possible the release schedule will slip, but the advance notice is at least an indication of Telltale's desire to speed up its chapter distribution. It took seven months for us to get from season one's opening episode in April 2012 to the closing chapter in November 2012—an agonising wait for some, particularly given Telltale's penchant for cliffhanger endings.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season's first episode is out now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. If you've already finished up but still looking for a Clem fix, check out our latest feature on how The Walking Dead's final season is changing the rules.

With The Walking Dead: The Final Season, Telltale has finally deployed its secret weapon: Time. Though the first episode features one of the most gruelling scenes now-teenage Clementine has had to face since performing surgery on her own arm, it's really the five years building up to it that gives it power. We’ve seen and guided Clem through the worst that the zombie apocalypse has to offer, almost in real-time, albeit taken in chunks. The little girl who once awkwardly told her protector, Lee, that swearing is naughty is now herself being told that by her own charge, and responsibility for his safety now falls squarely on her still small shoulders.

It’s an interesting dynamic for many reasons, not least that we rarely see maternal relationships in these games. From The Last Of Us to The Walking Dead to Heavy Rain to Bioshock 2 to God of War, the focus has typically been on fatherhood—cued, of course, by many members of the gaming industry in creative direction roles raising kids and seeing their world change accordingly. However, mothers and older sisters and other female caretaker roles are depressingly rare. When mothers are a factor, and not conveniently dead when the plot kicks off, they tend to be obstacles and villains instead—Sofia Lamb, turning her daughter into a weapon, Ethan’s wife in Heavy Rain being completely sidelined by the plot except for turning the police against him, and so on.

Clem’s role in The Walking Dead is an interesting mix of maternal figure and cool big sister—old enough to have brought young AJ up mostly on her own, but still very much a child. This episode plays off that beautifully as the two of them find themselves in a school of fellow children trying to make it on their own in the apocalypse without it going all Lord of the Flies. From the start, and much like Bioshock 2, the Final Season lays its cards on the table—that much as The Walking Dead wasn’t ultimately about Lee’s story as his legacy in the form of the Clementine who would outlive him, this one is an examination of how the girl that Clementine became will affect her own next generation in the form of AJ. Not for nothing does one of the early decision captions read “AJ is always listening” rather than the more common “AJ will remember that.”

What’s really promising about this series is that approaching it from this angle hugely opens up the scope for interesting moral decisions and outcomes. Again like Bioshock 2, which had your adoptive daughter Eleanor learn by your example rather than your words, AJ isn’t privy to your internal thoughts. He only sees what you do, and if what you do is say nice words and then backstab and murder your way to safety, it’s clearly going to be the latter that he takes onboard. More importantly, because it’s not just our decisions but our Clementine setting the pattern, there’s a sense of guilt and urgency behind them that there wouldn’t be if this was the first game—indeed, that there wasn’t back in the first series. As much as there’s the option to be a complete prick, it’s a fair bet that most players want to finish the series proud of Clem and her actions.

There are of course issues here, not least that Telltale’s much talked about branching stories and decisions tend to be smoke and mirrors. That’s not necessarily a problem as long as they support the story instead of feeling like they’re taking over it. The recent Batman: The Enemy Within, for instance, always ended up in the same place, with Batman facing off against Joker. However, the path to that point, and the responsiveness of the relationship between Bruce Wayne and “John Doe” had enough flexibility to feel real—to convey the sense that, just maybe, you had the power to save Joker’s soul, and then when all was done, that his fall was a tragedy.

The Final Season is, likewise, almost certainly heading towards a fixed conclusion. It’s unlikely to be very cheery. But with the focus on Clem and AJ there’s more than enough scope to still bend that path around decisions and choice, and offer control over how they reach their destiny, and who they are when it finally arrives. That can be enough. The best decisions in the first series after all had no direct effect—who to feed when the survivors were starving, whether or not Clem would shoot Lee before he became a zombie, and what his final instruction was to her. Charted, no, they don’t matter. Emotionally however, they completely alter the nature of the story, and it’s still a huge frustration that the first series didn’t fully commit by ending on a cut-to-black as Lee’s part in the story ended, him chained to a radiator, having to simply hope he’d done enough.

If this Final Season can convey that kind of emotional payoff, it won’t necessarily matter how much branching there is and how many endings. We’re talking the difference between picking a story from the developers' deck of cards, and simply experiencing your story. After so much time with Clementine, even looking up the alternatives will likely diminish the result—provided that Telltale can stick the landing in three months time. Fingers crossed they can, and that after ending this tale on a high, it will indeed be the Final Season, and not just for our darling Clementine. 

After appearing on consoles last week, Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season has a PC demo. Download it now from Steam. 

I must admit: the pre-E3 release date-revealing teaser trailer that slipped out in June caught me off guard. Not only was it emotional and sobering and eerie, it also looked great. At the time, Telltale told us to expect a new over-the-shoulder camera system and "scenes with unscripted combat", complimented by "all-new Graphic Black art style" that supports 4K resolution.  

Now, you can sample the opening scenes, which Vikki wrote about last month. Spoilers, obviously, here's what's in store:

As Sam Horti detailed last week, The Walking Dead's Story Builder lets you re-make all your tough decisions before Final Season. Because, honestly, who hasn't made some dodgy choices over the course of Clem's journey from vulnerable kid to hardened survivalist? RIP so many innocent NPCs. 

Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season will launch in full this coming Tuesday, August 14. 

Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season is out in just 10 days, and should pull together all those harrowing decisions you've made over the previous three seasons. But what if you're not happy with some of your choices, or want to see what the world would be like if you'd acted differently? What if you've lost your previous saves, and therefore your decisions won't carry over? Fear not, because a new tool called the Story Builder gives you a do-over—and you'll be able to import your new timeline into The Final Season when it's out. Neat.

It's a fairly simple tool: there are no clips from the game, just some artsy pans of still images with voiceover to help you with your decisions. If you've never played any of The Walking Dead, you'll be lost, but if you have played it then the pictures and description will likely jog your memory, and you'll be able to make the choice you wish you'd made at the time. It could also serve as a handy reminder if you can't remember all the way back to Season 1 (which was, *shudder*, six years ago).

To import your choices, you'll need to login to your Telltale Games account. The Story Builder will also be available in the game, so you can wait until then if you want. I think it's a brilliant idea, and I hope other games with branching narratives copy it in future.

Thanks, RPS.

Telltale has revealed the first fifteen minutes of Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season.

Now a "fierce and capable survivor", Clementine has reached the final chapter in her journey. The footage shows off the episodic adventure's new camera and art style, and how Clem—once need protecting herself—has become the protector. 

Providing you don't mind spoilers or a bit of gore, check it out for yourself:

"After years on the road facing threats both living and dead, a secluded school might finally be her chance for a home," teases Telltale. "But protecting it will mean sacrifice. Clem must build a life and become a leader while still watching over AJ, an orphaned boy and the closest thing to family she has left. In this gripping and emotional final season, you will define your relationships, fight the undead, and determine how Clementine’s story ends." 

The final installment of the emotional series promises a "gut-wrenching story", heightened tension, better control via its new over-the-shoulder camera, and a "striking" new visual style.

Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season's first episode is out August 14, 2018 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Pre-orders can secure the complete season with a 10 percent discount off the full £19/$18 price.

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The Walking Dead's final season may be the last to use the old engine. So if you fancy tangling with Telltale's back catalogue, now's a good a time as any. Humble's build your own Telltale Games bundle lets you mix and match up to five of the developer's signature games—netting you a bigger discount with each game you add.  

At 40 percent off, Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1 is going for £11.39/your regional equivalent. Its 400 Days DLC sandwich chapter—which sits between the first and second seasons—is just £1.19 with 70 percent off; while The Walking Dead Season 2 itself is £7.59, 60 percent less its regular price.  

The Wolf Among Us is probably my favourite of the lot here, on sale for £7.59 with a 60 percent discount. And Tales from the Borderlands with the same saving is another good 'un. I never did take to Telltale's slant on Back to the Future when I picked it up on console at launch, but as a long-standing devotee of the films I'm tempted to give it another whirl. It's now just £4.49 with a saving of 70 percent.  

As mentioned above, the more games you vouch for here, the more money you'll end up saving. Here's how it works:

Check out Telltale's build your own Humble Bundle in its entirety this way, and share your own picks in the comments below.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

Telltale is making the move from the creaky Telltale Tool to Unity, unnamed sources told Variety. The switch has been long-rumoured thanks to a job listing for Unity engineers back in January. It’s probably overdue, as the engine has been around since 2004 and, despite improvements, hasn’t aged well. 

The Walking Dead’s final season will fittingly be the last game for the old engine, while the Stranger Things adaptation will be the first Unity title, the sources say. Take a gander at The Walking Dead's E3 trailer below. 

It’s ostensibly good news. Unity is a flexible, popular engine, while the Telltale Tool has been unable to keep up with changes in game development. It took 12 years before it got a physics engine, for example. 

Still, the studio has made the most of the Telltale Tool, and The Walking Dead’s closing season looks like it will be pushing it further than ever. The last season of Telltale’s Batman also looked considerably fancier than most of the studio’s titles, especially when it came to the elaborate QTE action sequences. 

The old engine may have cost Telltale. According to Variety's report, one idea from people inside the studio was to stream the Game of Thrones adaptation to subscribers of HBO Now, tapping into its massive audience, but the Telltale Tool engine reportedly couldn't support that. 

Despite the shift to Unity ultimately sounding like a positive change, it’s not been problem-free. There have been some “growing pains”, Variety reports, and development is taking longer as the developers learn how to work with new tools.

The first episode of The Walking Dead's final season is due out on August 11. 

Telltale just took to the stage at the PC Gaming Show to reveal new footage from The Walking Dead's final season. We get a sample of combat, dialogue choices and lots of impressive facial animation. This entry has a brand new art style, and it really shows—the characters look more realistic than ever, and you can really sense a generational gap between the first season and where they are now. 

This entry sees Clementine protecting AJ, an orphan, and take up refuge at an abandoned school, where she'll take on the role of a leader. Not long to wait for that first episode, either. Earlier this month, Telltale confirmed that the opening chapter of the final season will be out on 14 August. As ever, expect the remaining episodes to filter out in the months after.