Telltale Games, developer of popular video games such as The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, Game of Thrones, and many others, has laid off much of its staff as of September 21, 2018 and will be shutting down.  

The company is in the midst of publishing the final season of The Walking Dead, which aims to bring the character Clementine’s story to a conclusion. Second seasons of both The Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones had been planned, and a Stranger Things adaptation was announced in August 2018. It is assumed that these have all been canceled.

Following the initial reports of the layoffs, Telltale posted via their own official Twitter account that the company has “made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges.”

“It has been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there,” Telltale CEO Pete Hawley said via an official statement. “We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry.”

Meanwhile, many Telltale employees have confirmed via social media that they are no longer employed with the company, and that developers and other staff members have been laid off without any severance.

In late 2017, the company laid off 90 people following reports of mismanagement and a toxic “crunch culture” in the Telltale offices.