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.

King's Quest Episode 3 and Michonne Episode 3 Released

I'm back from PAX East. I'll post about my experience at the show in a bit, but for now, I'll catch up on some of the releases that have happened lately.

The Walking Dead: Michonne, the miniseries by Telltale Games that reveals what happened to the character of Michonne during the period when she left the group in the comics after the events of All Out War, is now complete, with yesterday's release of episode 3.

Also receiving its third episode yesterday was King's Quest, the official ninth game in the series, by The Odd Gentlemen.  This episode, Once Upon A Climb, tells the story of how Graham saved his future wife Valanice, who is also Gwyndolyn's grandmother.

Telltale Games Humble Bundle

Update: 4/19 10:45PM: Two more games have been added to the bundle: Jurassic Park: The Game and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People.

Telltale Games are now in a Humble Bundle. For $1 or more, you can get Back to the Future: The Game, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, Poker Night at the Inventory, Puzzle Agent 1 & 2, and The Walking Dead: Season One. If you pay more than the average (currently just over $8), you also get The Walking Dead: 400 Days, The Wolf Among Us, Poker Night 2, and Tales from the Borderlands. Finally, if you pay more than $12, you'll also get Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead: Season Two.

Note that all of these games are redeemed through Steam only, as there is no DRM-free option available. There is about a week left to pick this bundle up, and there are hints that more games will be added to the package soon.

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

The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 2 and Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 5 Are Out Now

Telltale managed to meet its projected dates for two of its series, as today sees a double release from the studio.  Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 5 sets up the scenario for the upcoming three downloadable content episodes, while The Walking Dead: Michonne is the penultimate chapter of the three episode mini-series, furthering the danger and setting up the finale.

Both episodes are available to download today across all all available platforms, except for the Wii U version of Minecraft: Story Mode.  Also, due to an unexpected delay, the PlayStation versions of The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 2 will be delayed until the 31st of March.

Also, Telltale now has a dedicated page available for the Adventure Pass, which will be available as downloadable content and will encompass episodes 6, 7, and 8 of Minecraft: Story Mode, continuing the story from the cliffhanger at the end of episode 5.  Episode 6 will be available Summer 2016, and the other two episodes will follow shortly afterward.

Minecraft: Story Mode DLC and The Walking Dead Season 3 Coming In 2016

Telltale updated their blog with Minecraft: Story Mode news. Episode 5 will be releasing on February 29th. Then three new episodes will be released as downloadable content that can be purchased on the platforms supported by the game. The DLC episodes will be released over the course of this year.

Also, Mashable revealed, in an article with Telltale's CEO Kevin Bruner, that The Walking Dead: Season Three will begin releasing some time this year. More news will be revealed about Telltale's third season of The Walking Dead when Comic Con International occurs between July 21st and July 24th.

Telltale Is Making Monthly Releases Again

It turns out that the quick release schedule of Minecraft: Story Mode isn't a fluke after all. Their three episode Walking Dead: Michonne miniseries will be released on a monthly schedule. The first episode is coming out for computer platforms (no Linux yet though, but hopefully their Linux testing period yields results soon) and consoles (except for Wii U) on the 23rd of February, and the iOS and Android versions will be following, two days later, on the 25th.

Beyond that, they've already announced the release months for episodes two and three. Episode two will be releasing in March, followed by episode three in April. Hopefully this is a sign that their future releases, from Batman and beyond, will be released on a similar schedule.

Telltale Is Making An Episodic Batman Series

Telltale and Warner Brothers just announced a Batman episodic series, coming to PC, Mac, consoles, and handheld devices next year. It was just announced at the Game Awards 2015 in Los Angeles a few minutes ago. No name has yet been revealed, but it certainly is a major franchise for Telltale to tackle.

The only thing known about the story is a small tidbit from the press release: "“This iteration of Batman will give fans a first-hand opportunity to dive deeper into the complex life and mind of Bruce Wayne, the duality of his own identity, and the struggle of responsibility in saving a city overcome with corruption and villainy.”

This also means that we'll be seeing Telltale's take on games from both of the major comic universes, as Telltale has already announced a Marvel game, that will be premiering in 2017.

From Minecraft Story Mode, to The Walking Dead: Michonne, to Batman, to their Marvel game, and their first season based on an original intellectual property that will be both a television show and a video game series, Telltale certainly has a lot lined up in the next few years.

Michonne To Stand Alone When She Premieres Next Year

Telltale's upcoming miniseries based on the comic character Michonne will no longer be released as downloadable content. It's now going to be a standalone title that won't require any previous titles in the series to play.

 It's also been confirmed that the first episode won't be premiering until February 2016.

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

More On The Walking Dead: Michonne Revealed At Comic Con

At the Skybound panel at Comic Con today, Telltale and Skybound unveiled a little bit more about their miniseries about Michonne, which is set during the period in the comics when Michonne is not present.

It tells a story during a time when Michonne is at her lowest, and she is "bereft". She also will be wielding a machete rather than her trademark sword, as she doesn't have it at this point. Since Michonne is an action character, the game will require more action, and Skybound tweeted that "you will be pleasantly surprised". It will be released as a three episode DLC for Season Two late this fall.

They also released two pieces of concept art for The Walking Dead: Michonne during the panel.

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 Walking Dead: Michonne Miniseries Coming Fall 2015

The Walking Dead: Michonne was announced at E3.  It is a three episode miniseries that will follow Michonne from The Walking Dead, that explains what happened to her in the time frame when she was missing from the comic.

It will be downloadable content for The Walking Dead: Season Two, and will require at least the first episode of that season to play. According to IGN, it's going to come out in Fall 2015 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PS3, PC, iOS, and Android.

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.

More Telltale Games on GOG.com

Telltale Games has struck a deal with GOG.com to bring their newer games DRM-free to GOG.com, joining the adventure games that are already on the service (all three Sam & Max seasons, Back to the Future: The Game, and Tales of Monkey Island).  Telltale's newest games will have optional achievement support through GOG Galaxy. The first game that is available is Game of Thrones, which coincides with today's release of episode 4.

The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, and all of Telltale's The Walking Dead games will soon be on GOG.com as well.

Telltale Teasing The Walking Dead DLC

Telltale has revealed that The Walking Dead Season Three will not be coming this year. However, Telltale's director of public relations, Job Stauffer, posted on Telltale's forums that Telltale is working on something for The Walking Dead that will be bigger than 400 Days.

He goes on further to state that it will be released in 2015, and that it will be formerly announced at this year's E3 conference.

Tales from the Borderlands Preorders Are Open

Tales from the Borderlands is available to preorder on Steam now for 10% off the usual $25USD price, and the page lists the release date as November 25 (though note that Steam dates can sometimes be estimates that change before release. Telltale hasn't announced an official date yet).

In addition, the Tales from the Borderlands launch trailer is here, which means the first episode of the game should be releasing soon, as Telltale's games usually launch within a week or two of the launch trailer. Episode titles haven't been revealed yet, but it's known there will be five episodes and the Australian Classification board lists the name of the first episode as ZER0 SUM. The platforms have been announced as PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and iOS. More platforms will be announced at a later date.

In other Telltale news, they have quietly started shipping the collector's DVDs for The Walking Dead Season Two and The Wolf Among Us. If you have already or are planning on purchasing these games from the Telltale Store, you can get the DVD for the season at just the cost of shipping by clicking buy now at the game's website.

Choices-and-Consequences Game Review: The Walking Dead Season Two: Amid the Ruins

The fourth episode of The Walking Dead continues the disjointed feeling of the season, bringing lots of drama, but failing to find its sense of self in the process.

The episode follows the events of the last episode, with the group having to deal with the situation that was brought down around them in the episode three finale.  This episode brings a lot of tension in the group, and, as always, some losses.  It also comes with a lot of choices on how to deal with people.

Ultimately though, your choices don't really seem to amount to much here.  The characters don't seem to change their opinions on Clementine much, no matter which choice is made, and the actions that Clementine makes have little to no value on the group.  It's obvious that Telltale is trying to make the situation for Clementine seem hopeless, but in doing so they removed most of what made their other choice-based games fun.    Telltale's other choice-based games compensated for the lack of puzzles and direct-controlled action sequences by having choices that truly do affect the way people view the protagonist.  Because the choice-based mechanics are the main crux of this game, and they aren't handled well, the lack of puzzles and direct-controlled action sequences is never felt more than it is here.

The presentation still shines, from the always excellent comic book-inspired art style to the locations that match that style well.  There is also a little more exploration here, but it's little compensation for the lack of choices that have meaning.  The voice acting and music do add a lot to the feeling of hopelessness, which is indeed handled well.  However, they overdid that feeling by making your choices have no meaning, which ultimately made it a shallow gaming experience.

The penultimate episode of The Walking Dead tries hard to convey that the situation the survivors are in is hopeless.  In doing so, however, they have gone too far, bringing that feeling into the gameplay as well.  Like the other episodes of this season, there are no puzzles or action-based game sequences. But, because of the feeling of hopelessness conveyed by this episode, the choices here don't really matter.  The presentation is handled well, from the still amazing art style to the always excellent music and voice acting.  There is also more exploration available in some locations.  However, the excellent presentation doesn't compensate much for what feels like a hollow gaming experience.

Final Verdict:

3 out of 5

Episode Three Review

Episode Five Review