In regards to recent events about Telltale Games, it is heavily apparent that there is a potential shutdown of the company in the future. Apparent reasons range from mass layoffs, bankruptcy, and commercial failures of most of their titles. It should be noted that there was already some form of decline. In 2017, they already laid-off 25% of their workforce, with the reason to focus on smaller teams. Earlier this year, former CEO and co-founder Kevin Bruner also filed a lawsuit against the company, with a comment from the company’s lawyers themselves that confirmed it was under financial strain at the time.
A note to be made is that Telltale’s last big successes were The Walking Dead: Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us, as well as having suffered from a host of various issues in regards to management such as crunch time. This was also during a time when Stranger Things was to be made with the Unity Engine, which also meant further costs when the company wanted to shift away from their old engine.
In terms of the recent layoffs, it is confirmed that a mere 25 employees now remain in Telltale. According to LinkedIn, Telltale before had 282 employees. The tweet also details that the company had insurmountable challenges, that there is indeed a studio closure happening. Many sources also dictate that it is due to bankruptcy.
— Telltale (@telltalegames) September 21, 2018
https://twitter.com/joeparlock/status/1043223544639959040
The latter statement from Joe Parlock in particular effectively implies that The Wolf Among Us Season 2 is canceled, and perhaps Stranger Things as well. As of right now, Telltale will make further statements in the coming weeks, as everything else is still up in the air as to why this all happened. Afterall, Lionsgate had invested into the company, and Netflix had partnered up with Telltale for them to create Stranger Things. We will have to wait and see firsthand what the future holds.
