Telltale Was Working on a Procedurally-Generated Zombie Game

By now, the news regarding Telltale’s closure doesn’t need to be restated. This means a number of projects, even an ongoing one, were canceled. However, the studio was also working on a secret project, one that was supposedly meant to be a radical departure from the Telltale formula. Fitting with earlier comments about changing the Telltale format, there was apparently a team working on a game that had procedurally-generated story elements.

It was reportedly based on a popular zombie license, but not The Walking Dead. The studio had brought on Alexis Kennedy, who had created Cultist Simulator and worked on games like (the unannounced) Dragon Age 4 to contribute to it. She talked with VG24/7 following the announcement that Telltale was laying off around 250 employees.

This planned Telltale game was being developed for mobile devices, though there was the possibility of porting it to other systems. In contrast to everything else put out by the studio, the game was to feature procedurally-generated content. According to Kennedy, the project “was something that didn’t require hand-tuned content, but allowed room for stuff that emerged naturally from procedural generation.”

What's Telltale's Best Game?

Anthony Nash

There’s a ton of great choices, but mine has to easily be The Wolf Among Us as well. Not only did it present a fairly “adult” theme using fairy tales and fables extremely well, but captured the feel of a noire detective story better than any other game in recent memory.

Blake Grundman

As much as I loved The Wolf Among Us, my favorite has to be season 1 of The Walking Dead. It was the first time I can remember being emotionally overtaken by a game. Episode 3 should have been named “Get Ready To Cry,” because when I had to chose between killing [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], it left me bawling at my keyboard like a little baby.

Naturally, that is when my wife walks in the room. Yeah, that took some serious explaining

Cameron Teague

Tie between original The Walking Dead and Batman for me.

Chandler Wood

I'm pretty partial to The Wolf Among Us, simply for the property that's behind it. I've been less and less impressed with Telltale lately though, missing the days of Telltale classics like Sam and Max, Tales of Monkey Island, and Poker Night at the Inventory. The Telltale formula has been getting stale and is in serious need of a rework. I'd rather them not eschew classic puzzle mechanics of old for storytelling (often contrived to fit no matter which "path" you choose).

Elizabeth Henges

Tales from the Borderlands, hands down. I've never been a fan of the series before the Telltale series, but I really like the characterization and plot that Tales from the Borderlands had.

Keri Honea

It's definitely The Wolf Among Us. I loved the murder mystery setting, and it's the only Telltale series I wanted to play more than once. I have Tales from the Borderlands, but I've been told not to play it until I've played Borderlands 2, which I haven't done yet.

Michael Briers

The Walking Dead, though I've always been curious to try Telltale's spin on the Borderlands series. It's certainly resonated with a lot of our staffers, anyway!

Paulmichael Contreras

Of recent games I only ever played through The Walking Dead, so that defaults to my favorite. Sam & Max was also great, though (remember that?).

Tyler Treese

This is a tough one, as there are a few of the series that I really adore. The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands (which is surprising since I did not enjoy the stories in the actual shooters), and Guardians of the Galaxy are all great. I probably have to lean towards The Wolf Among Us, though. I absolutely love the core concept of fables existing in a modern setting, and it has the bonus of being set before the comics (which got really weird and went in a direction that I didn't care for).

Zarmena Khan

I admittedly haven't played a lot of Telltale games but from among the ones I have played, Tales from the Borderlands easily comes out on top. I never got into the Borderlands series but Tales actually made me care about the characters. I truly enjoyed each episode and hope to see more!

The game was going to still feature the classic Telltale art style, but outside of that was set to be a departure for the studio. It was more strategy-focused than other Telltale games, which were fairly limited in their gameplay mechanics. “The project was going to have more gameplay, and wouldn’t require a narrative designer and a writer to fine-tune every single scene,” Kennedy told the outlet. Even so, the game was still to feature “handcrafted bits,” though the majority of the game was to be randomly-generated.

Unfortunately, due to Telltale’s ever-growing pipeline, this new project never got the attention it needed to really get off the ground. As Kennedy recalled, “But given their brutal dev cycle, they could never focus attention on it. It’s really hard to do two kinds of things.” The project was eventually canceled in March 2018, and the entire team (save for one) was laid off. Sadly, that would pale in comparison to what would follow.

[Source: VG24/7]

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