The Walking Dead: The Final Season resumes January 15th on the Epic Games Store
The series harder to kill than any zombie
Not only has Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season found a new developer in Skybound Games after Telltale's sudden implosion, but it's setting up shop on the Epic Games Store. If you already bought the season on Steam or anywhere else, you'll find the upcoming two episodes there, but for anyone thinking of picking up the series now, it's exclusive to Epic's new storefront starting with Episode 3: Broken Toys on January 15th. Below, the voice of Clementine - Melissa Hutchinson - gives us an official FAQ on what's happening with the rest of the season.
I must admit that I'm surprised at how well Skybound have salvaged the situation. As Alice previously noted, they've not managed to get the entire team back, but have hired on at least forty Telltale folks to finish the story they started back in 2012. Skybound are also owners of the Walking Dead license, and were founded by the original comic author Robert Kirkman. While a lot of Telltale folks are still seeking work or otherwise displaced, it's no longer the unmitigated and tragic disaster that I was fearing - it's merely awful, which is a significant improvement.
Skybound have been communicative, and the FAQ video goes a long way to clearing up the finer points of what's happening now. The bad news there is that Skybound don't seem to have picked up any of Telltale's other licenses. Unless you bought some of Telltale's earlier adventures on Steam before they were delisted, you're not going to pick them up in any legitimate sense until a solution is found. Fortunately, Steam is pretty good about letting you keep stuff on your account permanently if you've paid for it, even if it's been pulled from virtual store shelves, but it might be best to download and back stuff up anyway - just in case.
I'm afraid The Wolf Among Us and any further Telltale stuff is lost in limbo, although there's always a chance someone will snap those up and try to resume those stories. I'm just hoping that Borderlands 3 picks up where Tales From The Borderlands (Telltale's best, fight me) left off. This is also yet another PR coup for Epic, and yet another in a growing list of high-profile exclusives. They're pushing hard to be a serious competitor to Steam, all while taking a much smaller revenue cut. It'll be interesting to see how this will force's Valve's hand, but I don't expect much to happen until after the holidays.
The Walking Dead: The Final Season's third episode, Broken Toys, launches on January 15th. If you already bought the season on Steam, you'll get it there, but those late to the party should keep an eye on the Epic Games Store next month.