'The Wolf Among Us' Developer Laid Off 'Most Of' Its Workers In September, Ex-Employee Says

Telltale Games, the developer of "The Wolf Among Us," has reportedly laid off "most" of its workers even as the San Rafael, California-based videogame studio recently completed the release of all "The Expanse: A Telltale Series" episodes.

The San Rafael, California-based video game developer confirmed the news after a former Telltale employee shared the news on social media Thursday.

"This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September," former Telltale cinematic artist Jonah Huang wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Huang called for workers in the gaming industry to unionize.

"I signed an agreement not to cause any harm to Telltale's business as part of my severance package. But I am legally allowed to speak on behalf of being laid off, and this statement of fact is sincerely not an attempt to cause harm or ruination to the company," he clarified. "I hate seeing abuse and exploitation continue."

Telltale Games issued a statement late Thursday, saying, "Due to current market conditions, we regrettably had to let some of our Telltale team go recently." The studio said it was working to provide support for "everyone" affected by the job cuts, but did not specify the exact number of affected employees.

The company also confirmed all projects in development "are still in production."

Huang said he cannot provide an update regarding the long-awaited "The Wolf Among Us 2 (TWAU2)" as he signed a nondisclosure agreement with the studio.

The last known layoffs at Telltale was in 2018 when it "made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges." The studio said it would retain 25 employees but did not say how many were let go.

Telltale briefly shut down operations in 2019 before LCG Entertainment revived the business name and some of its assets in 2020. The studio later rehired some of its former workers.

Huang was among the employees laid off in 2018, IGN reported.

The latest restructuring at Telltale came less than a month after the studio completed the release of all episodes of "The Expanse: A Telltale Series." The videogame company said after the release of the episodes that it was "a wild ride to get to this point, rebooting the studio and we wouldn't have gotten to this point without the dedicated teams behind the scenes."

Telltale CEO Jamie Ottilie in March said the studio was delaying "TWAU2" beyond 2023 mainly to avoid team burnout and shipping an incomplete or unready game. He admitted Telltale had struggled to overcome the challenges of rebuilding a studio during the pandemic.

Telltale is just one of a growing number of studios and gaming companies conducting layoffs in recent months. Sega canceled "Hyenas," which was being developed at the British studio Creative Assembly, last month. The studio said it was expecting "job losses" as part of a "redundancy consultation process."

Activision Blizzard also downsized its "Hearthstone" development team late last month. The gaming giant previously laid off some staff at its esports unit.