DEBATE: Biggest let down of Telltale Games?
Lets debate; what was/is the biggest let down of telltale games.
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Lets debate; what was/is the biggest let down of telltale games.
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These are my opinions, don't attack me for it.
Minecraft Story Mode, specifically season one.
Unpopular opinion alert, this game sucked.
twd anf
original answer, i know. its just the truth
Minecraft was fine, for me it has to be Guardians of the Galaxy.
Guardians did have some good branching, but the branching didn't matter since the characters and plot were boring and the visuals were the worst of any Telltale Game since Law and Order. I don't blame the writers though, they had a comical script similar to the movies and comics before the higher ups made them tone down the humor and make it a more dark and dramatic game.
The Walking Dead A New Frontier, obviously. That was the point where I dropped my Telltale fan tag. I defended their games for years since Season 1 of this franchise and this is how they repay me? That was also the time when Telltale overstayed their welcome. Not only did they ruin TWD, but also caused such a poor employ mismanagement and a poor project release schedule.
Game? Walking Dead: A New Frontier. There was a lot of hype and expectations as to how Telltale would follow up the big endings of Season 2, and they did not deliver on that. We ended up getting what felt more like a spin-off featuring Clementine as Javi's personal apocalypse tutor. A few of the new characters were enjoyable and became pretty well-loved, but overall the season was meh, with poor choice/consequence, a breakneck pace that didn't fit the series, and bland retreadings of the usual Telltale themes and conflicts.
Plus, you don't flat out say that "hey our premiere was too big it had to be split in two" when if you put the episodes together, that clearly wasn't the case.
Overall moment? Telltale's death, most likely caused by fines incurred from the Netflix leak.
I don't know who did it, but I'm really disappointed at whoever leaked TTG's Netflix deal. That's what probably killed them, and the fact that investors backed out at the last minute. Pete Hawley, you did what you could man. I had faith he could pull the company out of that financial rut, too bad it had already turned into a sinkhole.
It's sort of divided between ANF and Guardians of the Galaxy for me. I know the popular answer is Minecraft, but hopes (at least here on the forums) were already incredibly low for that game, so regardless of how it ended up turning out, it's hard to be let down by it. I actually didn't think it was that bad, definitely not one of Telltale's finest, but not God awful like I originally thought (although, looking back, it was definitely Telltale's jumping the shark moment and gave a good indicator that things weren't well with the company).
ANF was just plagued by so much inner turmoil within the company. Key team members leaving, the team being reshuffled, the CEO being forced out, rewrites, high amounts of crunch to meet deadlines, etc. It's clear Telltale suffered from faulty leadership during this time, and it showed with the final result. With a clearer direction and cohesion amongst the development team and higher ups, it could have been something great, especially if we go by the original premise of the game. Over 2 years of development resulted in one of Telltale's least inspired and weakest games, certainly the worst in the TWD series. Clem is underutilized and is only in the game for marketing, Javi's family and relationship with Kate is poorly developed, plot holes big enough the Titanic could fit through, rushed or unresolved conflict resolutions, and inconsistent character motivations are just some of the problems with the game. It could have been something unique and interesting, especially with what could have been done with the 5 endings of Season 2, but Telltale didn't want to take any risks, they chose to play it safe and stick to a trite formula that was hindering their business. This is Telltale's most popular franchise, the one everyone knows them for, and in spite of Season 2's criticisms, most people still liked it and wanted to know what was next. To have this be the third installment, calling it a let down doesn't do the colossal failure of this game enough justice.
But at least with that game I can remember a lot of the details and plot points, Guardians of the Galaxy on the other hand, was just so boring and bland I can barely remember it. And that's not because it's been a while since I've played it, even after I just finished an episode and I'm trying to recall what happened, I was coming up empty. This is the Guardians of the Galaxy, one of Marvel's most charming and beloved titles thanks to the original movie giving it a resurgence in popularity, and it just feels so lifeless and empty. It's not like Telltale never did comedic space adventures before, Tales From the Borderlands is one of their most popular and beloved game, and a lot of their titles before they made it big were comedies (Sam & Max). If it wasn't for the fact that I've seen the movies, I wouldn't remember any of the main character's names, it's that forgettable. The story was bland, the writing was uninspired, the characters felt like cutouts of the GOTG crew we know and love, the jokes were more miss than hit, it's just such a let down. The problems with Telltale were evident with these two games, they just didn't seem to care anymore with the products they were releasing. I don't mean that to be directed at the teams, but more so towards the higher ups. They were too risk-averse and were satisfied with rinsing and repeating the same tired old formula that people had grown accustomed to, and it shows the most with these games. Games afterwards like both Batmans and TFS were steps in the right direction (gameplay improvements, moving to a new engine, choices having good consequences, more efficient productions, risk taking in regards to the stories, characters, and gameplay, etc.), but these titles helped kill this company the first time around.
Even with those fines, which probably did play somewhat of a role, I don't think it would have prevented Telltale's closure if it didn't happen. Best case, it would have just been delayed, but most likely, it still would have happened at or around the same time. Investors had already left regardless of the Stranger Things leak, and AMC and Smilegate still decided to pull out of their planned investments in the company long after that happened. If it was the fines, then Telltale was even more poorly run than I thought. Not just because the proper safeguards and measures weren't in place to prevent major leaks like what happened, but that you were running on so little financial capital and resources that some fines brought your entire company down and resulted in you declaring bankruptcy, then that's blithering incompetence of the highest order, and is in now way how to run a business.
Don't know if Minecraft really qualifies as a letdown since nobody really expected much from the get-go. For the vast majority of the forums though, it'd probably be ANF.
Not getting tales from the borderlands season 2 I know they said it did not sell well but it was a classic a hidden gem of games
When they stopped making Sam & Max style adventure games.
Jesus Christ... another hate thread to voice all frustrations that have already been stated a million times over... sigh
The Telltale Community
Lol
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You're not (that) wrong.
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Petition to un-mod Dojo but done in a Phoenix Wright style so he has to agree to do it.
Me: Fallout 76
Everyone: Telltale diden't ma....
Me: FALLOUT 76!
(Serious answer,the walking dead final frontier.)
You know we have a different thread for that.
Is it over? Are there any more enormous images?
what thread
He had posted about only Fallout at the time, and I said someone made a thread for the biggest video game let down of the decade.
I can make a very good case for myself, and you know it, deep down in your heart.
Oh ok
Ok, instead of their closure being a dissapointing real moment, I'd have to say the inside look at the company's workings through interviews and articles following Telltale's many big staff layoffs and the ousting of Kevin Bruner.
-Overworked staff
- The quantity over quality mind-set
- New hires being broken due to the workload and constant crunch.
- Old employees being broken after being laid off from the company -- some even suffering mental health damages.
- Kevin Bruner's complete control over the creative/writing/design teams and his "my way or the highway" approval decisions.
- The refusal (from Bruner) to innovate or divert from the basic storytelling and gameplay model of The Walking Dead Season 1.
- The company not throwing themselves into their "interactive story" premise, making games that have far too few consequences and lots of linear/path-correcting determinant moments (aka killing off a determinant).
The last two points especially infuriate me, given that word quickly spread that Telltale's "interactive narrative games" didn't have much narrative to interact with, causing a huge drop in sales, distrust of the company and their quality, and then the chaos at the company that soon followed.
It really, really sucks that it took TTG's lovechild The Walking Dead to get neutered (Season 3 funneling player choices) and panned by fans/critics and the ousting of Bruner for some actual, meaningful change to occur.
People at the company finally started putting out work that fulfilled the promise they kept putting at the start of their episodes.
(Heck, one could argue that the team behind GOTG -- released 4 months after TWD: ANF's premiere episodes -- started putting in so many minimal choice/consequence events in later episodes because of that backlash and change.)
Came across this short discussion recently. It says it all. (stupid big picture on desktop)
For me it was just how they refused to patch their games for some reason. If there was a glitch on release, it just stayed there. The worst case was the TWD Collection, every episode had a painful amount of glitches, and they never did anything about it.
Honestly I really agree with that. Theres so many weird issues they just wouldnt fix. iirc in GoT Gryff in episode 5 wasnt wearing the eye patch and when ep 6 released they stil didnt fix it despite it being something that shouldnt be hard to fix at all.
also damn bringing up Gryff made me remember this golden meme that I have not seen in ages.
I believe they fixed it with ep 6 release, didn't they? (or at least he had an eyepatch in ep 6 previously on and in the episode itself) Still no idea why they couldn't just release a small patch or something instead of waiting for 4 months though lul.
But yeah, when some game of theirs was still not finished, there was still a small chance for some issues to be fixed, but once they reached the final episode, they were like "Nope, it's finished. Moving on!" and haven't looked back. For example, Zer0's voice in episode 5 of TftB was never fixed despite them acknowledging it was a glitch.
ᵃˡˢᵒ ᵍʳʸᶠᶠ ʷᵃˢ ᵒⁿᵉ ʰᵃⁿᵈˢᵒᵐᵉ ᶠᵉˡˡᵃ
iirc the previously on had the fix with the eyepatch, but in the actual episode 5 they didnt fix it.
My biggest Telltale letdown was their new forum in 2013.
The biggest "thing" that let down Telltale Games is (or should I say was) goddamn goatee bearded prick Kevin Bruner.
*The Telltale Community will remember that.
If Bruner where in charge, he'd have your head chopped off.
If Bruner were in charge, he wouldn't have the budget to do it!
true, true.
Biggest letdowns to me were Guardians of the Galaxy and Game of Thrones.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the biggest letdown, in my opinion, was not having Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson do the voices of Sam and Max in their games. Because I felt like someone needed to say it here!
Game of Thrones from Telltale was better than S7 and S8