The closure of Telltale Games has been covered fairly extensively. But a new bit of info surrounding the effect of Telltale’s closure has been revealed, with a source telling Polygon that the makers of Oxenfree were working on a narrative-focused Stranger Things game.
It’s no secret that Netflix has been looking to turn Stranger Things into a stable video game franchise. The streaming platform spent years trying to convince Telltale of its merits, and they’ve continued exploring options after Telltale’s closure.
One of those options, as it turns out, might be to talk to the makers of Oxenfree. A source has revealed to Polygon, including video footage that remains unpublished, that Night School Studio was working on a first-person narrative adventure codenamed “Kids Next Door”. Telltale was acting as the game’s publisher, following on from the mobile text adventure Night School Studio developed for Mr. Robot that Telltale also published.
The game would take place between seasons 2 and 3 of Stranger Things, and players would be able to import their save from Night School Studio’s title into Telltale’s Stranger Things game. As described by Polygon’s Megan Farokhmanesh, each chapter of the game would take course over a single night.
It would have taken place over the course of a single night, with players switching to a different kid every hour. Each had a different ability; with a character like Eleven, for example, you could use her telekinetic abilities to psychically scope out new locations, or solve physical puzzles. The bottom screen would include persistent dialogue from the rest of the cast as they kept in touch via walkie-talkie.
But as you’d expect, things became very fractured as the clock began to run out on Telltale. The Oxenfree developers apparently had no idea, and the source quoted claims that Telltale missed three milestone payments. When Telltale shut down, it came as a complete shock.
The full interview is a fascinating read, and you should check it out over here. There’s also new details about the intended direction of Telltale’s Stranger Things game, which was described as The Witcher 3 meets Night in the Woods – a mini-open world game with an animated feature film aesthetic.
The sad part of all of this is due to the publisher-developer agreement, everything Night School Studio worked on was owned by Telltale. Their game will probably never see the light of day – although if anyone has the pockets to rectify that, it’s Netflix.
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