The developer responsible for bringing deep narrative gameplay to the worlds of The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Minecraft is getting a new boss.
Dan Connors, who cofounded Telltale Games and worked as its chief executive officer until January 2015, is retaking that role. Kevin Bruner, who took over as CEO of the company more than two years ago after cofounding the studio, is stepping down. Bruner explained in a note to Telltale employees (as Kotaku first reported) that he will stay on the with the board of directors, but he wants to hand over control to someone “who can better drive Telltale to the next level.”
Telltale communications boss Job J. Stauffer confirmed this transition to GamesBeat.
“Kevin has led Telltale over the past couple of years after he stepped into the CEO role for cofounder Dan Connors in 2015,” Stauffer explained. “With Kevin departing, Telltale is fortunate to have Dan here to step back seamlessly into the CEO role.”
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Telltale has spent the last couple of years under Bruner’s control growing its presence in the story-driven adventure game sector. After launching its breakout hit The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series in 2012, which won our Game of the Year award, the studio began applying a similar structure to more Hollywood properties. Those include HBO’s Game of Thrones and Batman, and it also did this for an establish video game franchise: Gearbox’s Boderlands cooperative shooter. Each of these launched as a five-episode season where the individual parts debut on a near-monthly schedule. The gameplay then has players guiding their characters through conversations where the events can change drastically depending on the choices.
This spring, Telltale will launch Guardians of the Galaxy: A Telltale Games Series based on the megapopular Marvel comics and films. The company is also planning to debut the second season of its Game of Thrones series. But whether the company will try to amp up this business model under Connors or whether it will attempt something radically different is something we’ll have to keep an eye on.
