Telltale Games Reportedly Laid Off “Most” The Wolf Among Us 2 Staff

The Wolf Among Us game

It seems like workers at Telltale Games can’t catch a break, as the company has confirmed claims from now-former employees that many of the studio’s staff have been laid off. The layoffs reportedly affected most of the staff that were working on The Wolf Among Us 2, the sequel to the hit video game based on Bill Willingham’s Fables, which the creator recently made public domain.

In a Tweet on Thursday, two-time Telltale Games cinematic artist Jonah Huang claimed that Telltale laid off most of its employees in early September, with the status of games like The Wolf Among Us 2 now up in the air. Huang said that he signed an agreement as part of his severance package not to cause any harm to Telltale’s business, but said that he “hate[s] seeing abuse and exploitation continue.”

“I do not want Telltale to fail. I genuinely want it to succeed,” Huang said in a Twitter thread, “Telltale gave me a good deal this time around, but still, it ended the way most jobs in games end: a layoff, not a retirement. I ask my fellow game devs to fight for better.”

Huang encouraged game developers to unionize, and linked to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees’ (IATSE) weekly livestreams about video game unionization, and said he would be appearing as a guest. He also encouraged video game workers to fill out IATSE’s 2023 rates and conditions study.

In a subsequent post on Twitter, Telltale Games confirmed that workers had been let go, while also saying that all projects in development were still in production.

“Due to current market conditions, we regrettably had to let some of our Telltale team go recently,” the company said on Twitter, “We did not take this action lightly, and our commitment to storytelling and finding new ways to do so remains the same … All projects currently in development are still in production, and we have no further updates at this time.”

This is the second time that many Telltale employees have been laid off in a range of harsh cuts. The original Telltale Games started facing financial difficulties in 2018, and subsequently laid off more than 200 employees representing approximately 90% of its workforce. LCG subsequently snapped up the company, and some employees who had previously worked at the studio, like Huang, were rehired.

The news comes a week after Epic Games laid off almost 900 employees, and not long after Sega’s Hyenas game was shut down before it even launched, with a number of workers being laid off at Sega’s Creative Assembly in the process.