Telltale Game Availability

Gearbox Software just re-released Tales from the Borderlands to digital storefronts a few days ago. It's also coming to Switch next month.

Here's a list of the Telltale games that are available again:

The rights to Batman: The Telltale Series, Batman: The Enemy Within, Hector: Badge of Carnage, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, Puzzle Agent 2, and The Wolf Among Us, were acquired by LCG Entertainment. It also acquired the publishing rights to RGX Showdown. These rights were secured with their formation of Telltale 2.0 on August 28, 2019. They later acquired the rights to Tales of Monkey Island on June 26, 2020, and Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures on November 7, 2020.

The rights to Telltale's The Walking Dead games were acquired by the creator of The Walking Dead, Skybound. They are now published by Skybound Games, a subsidiary that contracted members of the Telltale staff to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season from the Telltale 1.0 offices in 2019. They also released a remastered version of all of Telltale's The Walking Dead games titled The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series.

As mentioned above, the rights to Tales from the Borderlands were acquired by 2K subsidiary Gearbox, the company that holds the rights to the Borderlands franchise.

The rights to the Sam & Max games were acquired by Skunkape Games, a company formed by former Telltale 1.0 staff. This is the studio that's currently remastering the games.

These games are currently available again to purchase, plus Sam & Max Save the World is available to pre-order in its remastered form. Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space and Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse will be available once Skunkape remasters those as well.

The rest are not available for purchase, although all are available to re-download if you purchased them from GOG.com, Steam, the Telltale Store, PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, Nintendo e-Shop, etc. These remaining games presumably remain in rights limbo. I'll keep you updated as, hopefully, more legacy Telltale games become available to purchase again.

Update February 22, 2023: It's been two years to the day since this list was posted here. Since then, Sam & Max Save the World Remastered and Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space Remastered were released. Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse Remastered will be released in late 2023. The original Sam & Max games are available as a bonus with the remasters of the Windows versions. 

Plus, Tales from the Borderlands received a sequel and there is now a Sam & Max virtual reality game. Additionally, if all goes as planned, Telltale 2.0 will release its first games in late 2023, including The Expanse and the long-awaited sequel to The Wolf Among Us.

Skybound To Finish Telltale's The Walking Dead Final Season

The official Twitter page of The Walking Dead was updated with news that Skybound, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman's company, will be finishing the final two video game episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season.

Telltale previously stated that they were looking towards multiple partners to hire the staff of The Walking Dead Season Four so that they could finish the season properly. So, it looks like there's a (tiny) bit of good news for at least some the staff members that were let go from Telltale without warning last month.

Telltale Shakeup

I last posted adventure game news way back in... 2016! Holy Moly! Since then, a lot has been going on at Telltale:

They've completed season one and season two of Batman, season two of Minecraft: Story Mode, season one of Guardians of the Galaxy (season 2 hasn't been announced... but it's pretty inevitable), and Season Three of the Walking Dead.

Plus, they announced season two of The Wolf Among Us (yes!), and announced that season four of The Walking Dead will be the final season.

Even more surprisingly, Kevin Bruner quit and Dan Connors stepped back temporarily as CEO. Then, Pete Hawley, the former general manager of games at Zynga replaced Dan Connors as CEO.

Then, on the 7th of November, a little more than a month after Pete Hawley became CEO, Telltale laid off 25% percent of its staff.

According to The Verge, the atmosphere at Telltale was toxic long before Pete Hawley came in. Kevin Bruner apparently stifled creativity and pushed employees into long crunch times.

Dan Connors was mentioned to be a much less imposing figure, but Pete Hawley isn't off to a great start. But some employees are hopeful that they'll have more creative freedom going forward.

I hope so as well. This blog was once named "Telltale Fan" after all. I wish the employees who are still at Telltale luck that they'll be able to once again make the games they want to, without being overworked. And, I wish those that lost their jobs luck in the future. If any of you haven't yet landed a new job, hopefully you will soon. And hopefully the next job will be your dream job.

Choices-and-Consequences Game Review: The Walking Dead - Michonne Episode 1

While part of the studio is working on The Walking Dead: Season Three, another part of Telltale has decided to break from their original characters and explore a popular character from the comics.  The Walking Dead: Michonne explores the titular character, after she leaves Rick's group following the events of All Out War.  In doing so, they've managed to make the character and situation enjoyable even without knowing the source material before hand.

The game opens with Michonne having flashbacks about the traumatic events that happened to her at the start of the zombie apocalypse.  She is then brought back into the present by Pete, a fisherman who she befriended sometime after leaving Rick's group.  The game focuses on Pete and Michonne after they hear a distress call on the radio of Pete's ship, The Companion.  Of course, this being the universe of The Walking Dead, deciding to help people isn't always an easy choice.  At this point in the story, it's a few years into the zombie apocalypse, and as explored in Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season Two, the constant threat of death has brought out the worst in many people.

The story is the best part of The Walking Dead: Michonne.  It's exciting, and the characters are all entertaining in their own right.  There's a mysterious nature to each of the characters, but unlike the second season of The Walking Dead, there isn't an overabundance of characters.  The layers of mysteriousness for each character are slowly pulled back, revealing more about each of them, even in the first episode.  With this being a three episode miniseries, hopefully Telltale will manage to continue this.  This episode is quite short, but there is a lot of story packed here in that short playtime.

The presentation is also top notch.  The team has come a long way in terms of presentation, with Tales from the Borderlands being a real turning point for the studio in this regard.  The Walking Dead: Michonne continues on this trend, with excellent choreographed action scenes and a fantastic opening sequence.  The voice actors are also excellent.  The voice actress for Michonne, in particular, is a real standout.  Michonne is a character who has been hardened by the events of the apocalypse, and it really comes across in her performance.  The rest of the voice cast compliments her performance just as admirably.  The musical score is also excellent.  The choice of music for the opening number is fantastic, fitting the scenario of the game excellently.  The original compositions are also equally fantastic, helping to set the tone of the game beautifully.

Unfortunately, the game play itself doesn't shine quite as much as the story and presentation.  It's a shame that after Telltale had shown that they could improve their formula with the direct controlled combat in Minecraft: Story Mode, they are right back to being solely driven by quick time events as in The Walking Dead: Season Two.  It also lacks the branching locations of The Wolf Among Us, or the optional puzzles of The Walking Dead: Season One.  The presentation of the quick time events is given a shiny new makeover, making them look nicer than ever.  However, when they are the crux of the gameplay, with no alternative offered, they begin to become tiresome.  The choices and consequences do seem like they might be interesting this time around though.  There's already one major choice that can be made at the end of the episode that has immediate consequences.  Time will tell for the other choices, but the intense situation that Michonne and Pete find themselves in could definitely make for some major consequences in future episodes.

Telltale manages to tell a fantastic story in the first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne.  They backed that up with a fantastic presentation, excellent voice acting, and fantastic music.  There is already one major consequence to the choices in this episode, and while there aren't too many others, the intense story could mean that there will be more major consequences as the mini-series continues to unfold.  Unfortunately, while the story and presentation really shines, the gameplay itself is a bit lacking.  The action scenes are choreographed beautifully, but when the sole means of action is solely prompted button presses, it quickly becomes quite tiresome. It's a shame that Telltale has gone back to relying solely on quick time events after showing that they can do so much more.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Choices-and-Consequences Game Review: The Walking Dead Season Two: No Going Back

The second season of Telltale's The Walking Dead has been an uneven ride, but the final episode manages to be one of the better episodes. The fact that it finally gives people a definitive story arc leaves for a semi-satisfying conclusion.  However, the main arc is left unresolved, leaving the third season the task to follow those threads.

The tension among the remaining members of the group is brought to a head here, and what appears to be the theme of this season is at the forefront. The people are falling apart around her, and Clementine discovers whether it is possible to keep what remains of the good in her humanity among the chaos of the zombie apocalypse. The remaining party members put this to the ultimate test, and this episode actually does a really good job of making the decisions of how much humanity to keep up to the player. Unfortunately, most of those choices are left open at the end of the season, leaving the task of resolving the choices up to the third season to tackle. This is a double-edged sword, as this openness is certainly a good thing, since this is the first Telltale season that hasn't had a story that was self-contained, and your choices feel like they might really matter in later seasons. However, on the other hand, this extreme of choice deviation has only come in the final episode, so it makes the season feel even more lopsided than it had before. It also remains to be seen if Telltale actually makes these alternate paths have any real significant meaning in future seasons, or if they continue to converge all the paths into one direction as they have done in their seasons in the past.

The music managed to complement the excellent voice acting of this episode.  The new locations were all interesting as well.  There wasn't a lot of free exploration, and most of the action was in quick time events, rather than direct action or use of items, but the events were well choreographed, and fit the tension of the story well.

On the subject of the tension of the story, the voice actors have done a tremendous job bringing the tension of the remaining members of the group to life. The performances here are among the best that the series has to offer, and the performance of the sole remaining character outside of Clementine from season one in particular really shines. I didn't care for him too much up to this episode, but the vocal performance of his voice actor managed to make me change my opinion of his character in every scenario. I was moved to tears by his speech in every choice available. This episode has brought to the forefront that this season is really about his redemption more than about Clementine's story, even if she was the protagonist. This decision is definitely divisive, especially since the situation leading up to his appearance in the second season is never properly explained. I felt that since this episode finally managed to have a cohesive story arc for the season, and since it managed to tie up his character arc pretty well, it worked for what it was. Hopefully, the third season manages to successfully carry on with the theme of losing your humanity in the zombie apocalypse, as, even though it appeared to be the theme of the season, that sadly became the secondary, unresolved, arc of the season.

The finale of the second episode managed to finally give the story a definitive arc, which was lacking in the rest of the episodes.  However, that arc focused on what appeared to be the second arc of the rest of the season.  This left the season's overall arc, that of losing your humanity among hopelessness, unresolved.  On the other hand, this season is the first of Telltale's seasons to have multiple endings, making the choices and consequences appear to have a little more weight than they had before.  The season still remains Telltale's most uneven venture to date, but the non-linear ending coupled with the interesting new locations, stellar voice acting, and excellent music manage to elevate this episode to one of the best of this season.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Episode Four Review

Tales from the Borderlands is Now On GOG.com

Tales from the Borderlands is now available at GOG.com, and is currently 50% off as part of their summer sale, which ends tomorrow. All of the Telltale games available at GOG.com are currently on sale, ranging from 50% off to 90% off, as part of the summer sale as well.

The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead series on GOG.com

More Telltale games are now available DRM-free on GOG.com. You can pick up The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead series for 75% off too if you grab them now, as they're currently part of GOG.com's summer sales.

Choices-and-Consequences DLC Review: The Walking Dead: 400 Days

400 Days is downloadable content for The Walking Dead: Season One that tells the story of five different protagonists who survived the first 400 days of the zombie apocalypse in a single episode. It is an ambitious story experiment by Telltale Games and one that mostly manages to work, with a few hiccups.

The story takes place during the first 400 days of the zombie apocalypse, from the early days of the outbreak to a time period taking place after the five episodes of the first season. The stories interconnect with each other and at times even reference events and characters from season one. Unlike Telltale's previous games, you can choose your protagonist from the start. You will have to play as all five protagonists, but which order you choose determines at what point in the timeline the story will be told. This means that you can either play the story linearly from day 1 to day 400, or jump around as you wish. This choice is nice, as it gives the player a freedom of choice that they hadn't had before, but it's also one of the episode's major drawbacks, as ultimately the order doesn't really matter, as the purpose of the story is simply to tell five stories about how five people with five very different personalities had come to survive the apocalypse. This is mostly remedied by the fact that the stories told are all quite interesting, and they surprisingly manage to flesh out the characters quite a bit in the very short playtime that each character is given in each of their single chapters.

As usual for this series, the voice acting and music are excellent. Each actor portrays their role with a truly genuine feeling, from the main characters to the side characters, and the music manages to hit all the right notes to fit the mood perfectly. The art style continues to shine, with each location and character having a comic-style look to them, as in the series proper. As far as gameplay is concerned, this episode continues on the course started by the finale of The Walking Dead, by no longer having true inventory puzzles or direct-controlled action sequences, with gameplay only consisting of player choice and quick time events. Unfortunately, as each chapter is very short, the limitations of this style show more than usual, as the choices don't immediately affect the way characters treat you in the story as much as they did in the main series.

400 Days is an experiment in storytelling that manages to work quite well as a story, but leaves a little to be desired in the choices-and-consequences department. The choice-based gameplay worked fine when you had a whole season, or even a whole episode focusing on choices made and how characters react to those choices. With each chapter being quite small due to the limited time allotted to each character, this style of gameplay doesn't quite work as well. However, the five stories told are all quite interesting, and the voice actors portray the characters (as well as the characters met by the protagonists) quite well. The music and art style, always a high point for this series, also continues to shine here. So, it might still be worth playing if a strong story and presentation are enough of a pull for your tastes. If you prefer a little more substance to your gaming, you might want to sit this one out.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Choices-and-Consequences Game Review: The Walking Dead: No Time Left

The first season of The Walking Dead concludes, bringing its story to a satisfying conclusion.  It may not be as long, or have as many puzzles or non-quick time event style action scenes as some of the earlier episodes, but it's likely its gripping story and fantastic pacing will leave you satisfied, yet wanting more.

The episode begins after the shock ending of episode 4, exploring the consequences of those events.  You are given an option to try to remedy the situation, which leads to differing scenarios of how the characters react to Lee.  The episode quickly shifts to a rescue mission, and this is where it shines, pacing wise.  It conveys a sense of urgency throughout, and because the team is rushing to their destination, it has some of the most nail-biting encounters with the undead Telltale has given us yet.

The episode does slip a bit in terms of the improvements in player interaction that have been made the last few episodes.  The puzzles haven't been difficult this season, but they have improved in quality over the course of the season.  That's sadly not the case in this episode.  Gone too are the action scenes with direct player interaction, as this episode consists solely of quick time events.  This episode consists solely of quick time events and choice based gameplay.  However, the choice based gameplay that leads to differences in how you are perceived by the group continue to be strong here, and since that is the main gameplay of this season, it does manage to mostly make up for the lack of gameplay in other areas.

The music is atmospheric as always, fitting the episode well, right up to the closing credits.  Where the episode really shines, however, is the voice cast.  They have always put in fantastic performances this season, but they are at the top of their game here.  This episode has the most emotional story of the season, and the voice cast helps with that tremendously.  Both returning and new characters have their lines delivered with great passion, and in a story that tugs at your heart strings as much as this one does, that's extremely important. 

Even though the gameplay is not as robust as the last few episodes, No Time Left manages to finish up the season remarkably well.  It may be lacking the puzzles or action scenes with direct player interaction that Telltale has been fine-tuning in the last few episodes, but its well told and well paced story does well to compensate.  The atmospheric music and solid performances from the voice cast help tremendously as well, with the latter delivering their best performances to date.  All in all, it's a satisfying end to an exciting season.

Final verdict:

4 out of 5