The Future Of Episodic Gaming

With a tumultuous history including smash-hit titles and the shock closure of the format’s biggest advocate, what’s next for episodic gaming?

- Rebecca Stow

In September 2018 the gaming industry was rocked when, halfway through The Final Season of The Walking Dead, developer Telltale Games announced its immediate closure. Over 250 people lost their jobs, the final two episodes of The Walking Dead were cancelled, and millions of Telltale fans all over the world were left devastated.

Even the studio’s considerable success with other hit episodic games such as The Wolf Among Us, Tales From The Borderlands and Back To The Future couldn’t keep it afloat. So where does this leave episodic gaming and its future? Well, to look forwards, we first need to look back.

Telltale wasn’t the first developer to utilise a serialised format. Episodic games (titles released in segments like a television show) have actually been around since the ’80s, with titles such as Diabolik, Time Runners and Dunjonquest being early adopters of the format. The episodic structure gained notoriety through these smaller releases, but initially failed to win the trust of bigger developers. As an example, Quantic Dream was originally going to launch its 2005 drama Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy in the US) as an episodic game, only to decide against it not long before release.