Telltale Games shut down--and was just bought and "revived"?

League of Shadows so Lazarus Pit Lady Arkham

Actually as long as she comes back you could bring in anyone.

Robin hasn’t been a thing until maybe Tiffany but her coloring of purples looks more Batgirl to me. She’s the first and only possible sidekick besides vigilante joker.

Yeah the Telltale continuity doesn’t have any Robins, except maybe Tiffany Fox (who I don’t think ever got a codename).

League of Shadows makes sense since we have Avesta who happens to speak Farsi so is clearly secretly Talia Al Guhl in disguise… I’M ONTO YOUR GAMES TELLTALE. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Hush makes for a more personal villain and is Bruce is abandoning one of his identities makes for a good counterpart about the question of identity. Of course there would be lots of villains returning from Season 1 and 2 anyway, this is just the core opponent who would be new.

I actually suspected her of being tallia until her deafness and the sonic attacks then I thought Black Canary so why not both?

And why not use Hush? Killer croc or whoever else you want.? Love to see new spins. For example when I join DC universe roleplays I play an lab grown plant human hybrid daughter of Pamela Isley and Jason Woodrue. She raises lost children in an underground garden commune while expanding the Green. Good times. Creating new backstories is fun.

Actually funny enough I had the idea of Poison Ivy as the initial enemy for Episode 1 of a third season, kinda similar to how Enemy Within used Riddler (though I wouldn’t kill her off that quickly).

Episode 1 of Season 3 would be similar to Episode 5 of EW in the sense that you would have two quite different opening situations - a Bruce with Alfred who has abandoned Batman, or a Batman without Alfred who has effectively abandoned Bruce. And you show what that loss of identity, of part of who you are, does to yourself. The side Bruce has embraced is doing good for Gotham but the absence of the other half is causing alternating problems. Cue the arrival of Pamela Isley and a new underlying threat to Gotham, leading Bruce to seek information from… you guessed it, John Doe (who plays differently depending on what persona he embraced in Enemy Within and what Bruce told him).

I know that Harvey and Oswald would be back from Season One, not sure about Lady Arkham, though she makes for an engaging opponent based on whether she knows Batman’s identity or not. Tiffany and Selina would be viable in terms of alliance based on choice and position. Amanda Waller would of course be back too. Harley of course. Avesta would be back too. Gordon and Alfred… basically the bulk of Season One and Two characters would be back! We can be ambitious… :sweat_smile:

How I’d do it if I was writing it based on my save.

The League found the broken and suffering and angry Victoria Arkham and turned her into Lady Arkham funding her and teaching her to battle. Perhaps even recruited by Avesta aka Tallia. Maybe they even had a Nyssa Sarah thing going but I do use lesbians alot. Recovering her body from the church

The league were not responsible for the pact but used it as a test of Batman and Bruce’s Strength and Will. Tallia lost her hearing but learned a lot about Batman from it. She also learned about Riddler’s sonic dampeners to make the Black Canary device and possibly becoming it.

Bruce visits Vigilante John and spends time with him getting perspective since he quit being Batman to become comms.

Harley is in charge of the Suicide Squad and loves her Job especially when Waller got taken out.

Freeze has lost all of his emotions from the virus even for Nora her condition now is a puzzle not a passion.

Harvey is rehabilitated choosing to work as a legal consultant on his good days and underground fight club in his bad days.

Oswald is still in Blackgate becoming king of the underworld from his luxury cell.

Tiffany is struggling with the code especially when repeat threats rise up. But she’s making Batgirl a symbol of Justice.

Gordon Retired. Montoya ( or whoever is best detective was ) has taken his place. Barbara has applied to join the Force.

Alfred has been getting Therapy from a brilliant professor called Hugo Strange.

Nice! I might end up having Avesta be Nyssa or simply a former or secret member of the League of Shadows, since her being Talia is a bit too gimmicky and similar to Dark Knight Rises… I like your suggestion for having Lady Arkham be secretly trained by the League of Shadows, given her gear suited the situation and her goals.

I might consider creating a Batman Story Builder via Twitch or Ink or something, similar to the Walking Dead ones (save no images). If your have any suggestions of important choices from the first two seasons you’d want included feel free to suggest them!

@GenecoInheritor and @derekmetaltron maybe move any further discussion of this to the Telltale games thread? :slight_smile: This thread should be more about the state of their company and any news regarding their closure and what can be learned from it!

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You could tell about the toxic work environment and crunch culture just by playing their games. I always wondered why people enjoyed them, because the stink of their culture was readily apparent when playing the games. I suspect they were only successful due to advertising and a brief fad. The choice of games games, on the other hand, do not have the sweatshop stink to them.

You have to understand this line is subject to individual opinion:

Enjoyment between individuals varied. Although the stories were not literary masterpiece doesn’t mean it weren’t enjoyed by some fans.

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I never got the impression they felt rushed or always bad - I can probably count the number of episodes I felt were lacking on one hand. I also felt both Guardians of the Galaxy and Minecraft Story Mode got some unnecessary slack just because they ‘weren’t Walking Dead or Wolf Among Us’. The different types of Telltale fans have often been prone to being a bit petty that way.

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Wow, this is some chart.

The creators of True Trophies and True Achievements have number crunched statistics from their community of over 500,000 players, and the trend is plain for all to see.

The graph below shows players who completed the first chapter in each game:

Rest of the article:

Now there are some caveats worth pointing out here: some of the earlier games were re-released, so data is tracked across the PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 for those. This means that some players may have bought the game multiple times, and with the community skewing towards easy achievements, that seems likely.

Moreover, games like The Wolf Among Us have been knocking around over five years now, and have been discounted countless times in between. Still, even with all that considered, it’s pretty obvious what has happened to Telltale over the years: the graph slopes downwards quickly, and not even gigantic brands like Batman had the power to really meaningfully reverse the trend.

It’s a shame, and our thoughts go out to all those without work – but there’s simply no denying that the developer failed to evolve. We’re playing Life Is Strange 2 right now, and while the new cast may not gel with fans of the originals, there’s no doubt that DONTNOD has tried to really evolve the format from the first game. That’s just not the case with Telltale, we’re afraid.

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That chart sums up my experience exactly. I played their first game and then was done with them.

I guess a lot of people did

Oof. What’s crazy to me is that they responded to their sharp drop-off (from Walking Dead Season 1) by licensing more expensive IPs. It seems clear to me that Game of Thrones, Batman, Minecraft, and Guardians of the Galaxy would be more expensive than a more obscure comic book like the Wolf Among Us or even a more niche game like Borderlands, but they sadly doubled-down and dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t get out of. You can see the progression where they were like, “Borderlands didn’t sell very well? Get Minecraft!” instead of examining exactly why people stopped buying the Walking Dead after the first one.

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In some ways, it is situations like this where I wish management types would be punished to some extent. I mean, how many times do we hear about CEOs, etc. that ran a company into the ground…and still ended up getting a multi-million dollar severance package?

I realize that the person they brought on to run Tell-Tale was to try and fix the mess the previous person did, so I realize the situation isn’t exactly the same.

What also gets me is that as more information came out, it was obvious that the business model just wasn’t sustainable. Yes, Minecraft and TWD 1 made money, but others didn’t. This means that for 8 years, counting from the time TWD 1 came out, Tell Tale was getting a major portion of funding in investments from that period of time. Even with the most persuasive of people, companies will want to see a return on that investment.

My big hope? Some of the former employees manage to form a smaller, more independent studio so they could work on projects of their own IP.

I mean, 2 people who formed Campos Santos games (Makers of Firewatch) actually were co-writers for TWD Season 1. It is also interesting that maybe what many people saw a decline in the quality of the TWD was due to other people being brought in, and maybe not as good at the writing.

If nothing else, at least some smaller indies can still make similar content.

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The biggest problem is that they didn’t try and create more original ips which they could invest in and utilze to get the sorts of attention to afford the established ones. And also of course they saw that the Walking Dead formula worked and didn’t try and experiment further into the genre until it was too late.

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I really recommend playing the wolf among us, which imo is the best of their games.

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Yeah the games you definitely should play are Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands and both seasons of Batman (though Enemy Within is definitely the better of the two, but you would want to play Season One to get an idea of what has led to that point).

Minecraft Story Mode and Guardians of the Galaxy are also fun and often underrated. None of these games incidentally require an in-depth knowledge of the properties - I have never played Minecraft or Borderlands and I was fine.

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A summary of Telltale’s history as a company:

  • Started with a poker game, switched tracks because it didn’t give them nearly enough money.
  • Spun their wheels a bit with Bone until they managed to acquire the rights to Sam and Max, which kept them afloat thanks to a combination of good feedback and Gametap deals.
  • Gametap ends up collapsing, causing the Sam and Max money to begin drying up. Telltale throws various episodic licensed games at a wall until something sticks.
  • Telltale sticks with this formula, becoming the gaming equivalent of a Nike sweatshop, for five years until they end up collapsing again.

The trend of sticking with a single horse until it collapses is fairly new, but Telltale being unwilling to get out of their comfort zone unless they are explicitly forced to isn’t new, unfortunately.

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