Telltale Games Interview with Job Stauffer: "Our Stories Are the Gameplay"

At Gamescom 2022 I was lucky enough to meet up with Chore Stauffer, Telltale Games' Caput of Creative Communications. In a white booth nestled deep inside Warner's printing area, I'm faced with a big Tv and Task himself. A larger and hairier man than myself, Job was at first imposing only as before long equally words left his mouth you lot heard a gentle, softly spoken phonation which perfectly complements his friendly and instantly welcoming nature. Once pleasantries were over I excitedly started recording audio, and we chatted quite a lot. Brace yourselves!

So to start with, nosotros're in the Warner Bros. booth right now, are Warner Bros. now publishers for Telltale Games, or…?

This doesn't hateful anything to anyone, except for those working on this stuff, consumers won't know any deviation, but they are now our retail distribution partner. Not our publisher, we're nevertheless the publisher and developer, just they're gonna help sell the game in Woolworths, or wherever else. Anyway! We're in the Warner Bros. booth, we merely launched Batman two weeks agone, accept you played Batman yet?

Aye! Yes, I have.

Yous played the get-go episode? Crawly! So, it doesn't brand sense to testify an episode that'southward already out, the second episode is still getting some final polish so we weren't going to testify that, our third flavor of The Walking Dead is coming this Fall, probably Oct or November, merely our games don't look like annihilation, visually, until similar a week and a half, two weeks before they're ready to go. We work very differently to most other developers. We have our terminal episode of Minecraft: Story Manner hitting September…

How many episodes are in that location of that?

There were five in the flavour, and so we had a three episode Extended Adventure pass, so it went all the manner to episode 8. So our big finale, I remember we're going to do a Oversupply Play at Mine-Con, Anaheim, next month. In that location's that, and and then last calendar week we actually started teasing a new projection – are you familiar with the show Mr. Robot?

…Not really…

Not actually? That's fine. It'due south quite expert, you really should watch it, I believe it's on Amazon Prime number in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, very very skilful, in a nutshell, it is nearly a group of hackers in New York, who phone call themselves fsociety, who are trying to have downwards the world's biggest corporation ecorp, or as they telephone call information technology Evil Corporation, to reset the world and erase all debt, and kind of bring the world economy back to nothing. It's a fantastic show, Golden Globe winner, all-time drama, best performances, and it'southward in its second season, it'south very proficient. Nosotros teased last week that we were working on something to do with Mr. Robot in conjunction with a studio called Dark School, who y'all might know for a game called Oxenfree?

I know of information technology, I tin can't say I played it!

It's very very good, if you've e'er seen Stranger Things or, y'know, The Goonies…

I know The Goonies!

It'southward a lot similar The Goonies meets Myst, on a deserted isle with ghosts and friends trying to effigy out what's happening. It's very good, and was the first game from Night School, co-founded by a onetime Telltale writer, great guy past the name of Adam Hines and his cousin Shaun, just a vivid minor contained team. The folks at Mr. Robot wanted to extend the story into a game somehow, something like a Telltale game, and they actually turned to Dark School to do something that was delivered entirely over text messaging, one thing led to another, and now Universal, Telltale, Night School take this iii-style partnership and just released Mr. Robot final night. That was kind of a surprise release. So yeah, Batman simply started, The Walking Dead is coming, Minecraft is ending, Mr. Robot'due south out, Marvel project's coming next yr, anything you'd like to talk virtually, that's why I'm in Germany.

Okay, so recently Telltale has been a developer that unremarkably picks up other properties or IPs and expands those universes or interprets them in a different way, similar in the case of The Walking Expressionless non strictly following the comics or the Television set show, simply going in its own management, what tin you tell us about Telltale's plans to create more original IP?

Yes, we're working on that at present, we're very excited and honored, and our artistic partnerships with Warner Bros. on Batman, Kirkman and The Walking Dead, and everything we're doing, like our upcoming Curiosity game, it'south always going to exist a big function of what we do. Telltale has moved in to original IP before, with Puzzle Amanuensis and Puzzle Agent 2, even Poker Night at the Inventory, but looking for something that'south entirely original from Telltale – nosotros're not far off. Nosotros are working on something, nosotros can't talk well-nigh it yet, but we run into a world where nosotros have our original projects running at the same time as our collaborations, and even in that respect something like Batman is our own interpretation of Batman entirely, it's not an adaptation, it'south our take on the universe, and it's fantastic to work with that fan base and work with DC, and tell the Batman story that hasn't been told before, something focusing on Bruce Wayne, it feels like our ain, information technology feels unique, and in the future nosotros will take more partnerships, more than surprises, and more original IP as well.

On that note, wanted to say, really happy well-nigh the Bruce Wayne focus in the Batman episode. Information technology felt like a fresh have on Batman that no media have really tried before – finally.

That was the whole pitch! We approached DC and Warner Bros., and said "What if the focus was on the human behind the mask? What is it like to be a Billionaire? What is it like to walk into a gala full of Gotham'due south most elite, have these secrets y'all're keeping, having the whole urban center watching you…" And more than than that, diving into the mind of this man, who has gone to these extraordinary lengths to fight law-breaking in Gotham, and everything he's gone through with his parents, and rethink the entire Wayne legacy at the same time. Recall; "Why is he doing this?" I remember that's really where we kicked off with this series, and we're going to continue going downwardly that rabbit pigsty, looking into Bruce's psyche and what makes him Batman, while allowing players to be the Batman they want to exist. There's 75 years worth of Batman stories that people identify with and consider their favorite Batman, they might like the more violent Frank Miller Batman, they might like the Kevin Conroy animated series Batman, nosotros let the player to lean in any direction they like and find their own Bruce or Batman identity. That's why it was perfect for a Telltale serial, and information technology was an opportunity for us tell to exist Bruce Wayne and tell a story that after 75 years nonetheless really hasn't been touched on as much. Information technology's something nosotros've been looking forward to doing for a very long time.

I recollect Telltale does that really well, again using The Walkind Dead as an instance, so many Zombie-themed games focus on combat whereas of form with Telltale's The Walking Dead that's non the instance, and I really beloved that divergence of viewpoint that Telltale brings to the table.

Yeah, and that's actually why we're different, it's come up at Gamescom that our games follow a familiar format mechanically, only all of our games are different stories, and our stories are the gameplay, and stories define genres in films and television, but in the games manufacture it has e'er defined games by their mechanics. When you call up well-nigh games and which genres they are, y'all would talk about racing games, fighting games, RPGs, puzzle games, RTSs, and that's how we separate games in our minds, and in this industry, but if y'all load upwardly something similar Netflix or Amazon and you look at all the different content on there, it'south sorting by genre like it would in a video store. Western, SciFi, Action, Drama… For Telltale, we're a multi-genre studio, there'south apocalyptic drama, similar The Walking Dead, there's family comedy and entertainment like Minecraft: Story Fashion, SciFi Action Comedy with Tales from the Borderlands. We sit down in the infinite between games, TV and film where our genres are meliorate defined by our stories. And when story defines the genre, the possibilities are limitless. Having that familiar unique, mechanical format is a very depression barrier to entry and it'south central to what we do, information technology's the same experience with a controller, played on an Xbox or a PC as information technology is playing on your tablet or your phone. And the difficulty doesn't lie in moving your graphic symbol, or borer a push to say certain things, the difficulty is in the decision making. That's where our games are difficult, and living and breathing. That'southward where the story comes alive, and the story really is our gameplay.

Since The Walking Dead flavor i, I feel like I've noticed an awful lot of developers coming out with make new adventure games, which seemed like a dead genre. I experience like Telltale has revitalized a genre that didn't seem like it was going to e'er become its solar day again. Being inside Telltale, what does information technology experience like looking outside and seeing other companies inspired by the success of Telltale games?

Aye, I call up we're simultaneously flattered, and humbled, but also proud. The company was founded by folks who worked on some of the best classic adventure games of all time, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and hazard games have always been in our Dna, merely at the same fourth dimension we've been moving in this direction where we can drop "risk" equally the genre, and the story becomes the genre. I remember a lot of that has to do with beingness more accessible to a wider audience that consumes Tv set and film, and less head-scratching moon-logic, puzzle-driven experiences, and more than familiar experiences for people who lookout man TV, and watch movies, and really desire to be absorbed in the genre, instead of being slowed down and stopped by a puzzle which doesn't really exist in whatever realm of actual man drama or emotion. So we've definitely taken a unlike path, we nevertheless love classic adventure game logic, there are some projects we have in the works that are tinkering with some of those ideas, and we dearest games that also subvert those ideas every bit well. Like, I'd definitely recommend playing Oxenfree from Night School! It does but that. And that'due south why nosotros love working with those guys so much, and I hope we've paved the way for Adam and Shaun to make a game like Oxenfree the success it has go. It's awesome for that to take come total circle and now work with them to get Mr. Robot out. It's great. Nosotros love it.

And then, you said you're tinkering and experimenting with the older puzzle elements that used to define adventure games… Does that mean Puzzle Agent is coming back?

It doesn't mean Puzzle Agent is coming back, I volition say that probably the best example of that in our electric current serial is that y'all can see a lot of that in Minecraft: Story Mode, which was this project nosotros kicked off with Mojang. Nosotros were big fans, they were big fans, we saw unlimited potential in the universe, fans were dying to get some kind of story going, there are YouTube videos and people writing their own fan fiction, trying to observe and define what the universe of Minecraft was, and to this solar day in that location still is no story, and there shouldn't exist, it's any you lot desire it to be. And then when we sat down with them and asked what our story should be, we looked to movies we grew up with as kids, classic family adventures, Ghostbusters and definitely The Goonies, and tried to find the spirit of those stories and roll them in to this Minecraft: Story Mode, just also, lean a little closer to puzzle gamble elements, finding Redstone and applying it to different things, crafting things on a crafting table that will unlock a secret chamber, to finding the secret object… That was marrying modern Telltale storytelling with an homage to the archetype adventure game roots, and we're very proud to have welcomed millions of new players, a younger audition, to a crash course on archetype take chances games, but also a jumpstart into how interactive drama and interactive storytelling work with Telltale. Then we're e'er thinking well-nigh information technology, it'due south ever on our minds, and we're doing information technology correct now in ways you may non even realize.

I recently played Batman, really enjoyed it, and from The Walking Dead season i to Batman it's quite obvious that Telltale's engine has gotten improve, characters and animations look more expressive, than they e'er have done before, I felt like The Walking Dead flavor 1 was rigid, but with the new Batman, I don't feel like that'southward the case, and I'm assuming that's an on-going process, constantly being updated?

Yes, nosotros're always iterating and improving on our tool sets and our engine, but specifically for 2022 with Batman and the third season of The Walking Dead nosotros've devoted a significant amount of additional resources and new staff, and hires from all over the games industry to really give us a pregnant jump in fidelity. Batman has a real comic-book style, so I don't call up we'll e'er be moving into the space of photorealism, I retrieve we'll always steer abroad from the uncanny valley. We know we can create a human being connection, an emotional connexion, with a character that is more animated, than falling in that infinite of realism where yous think likewise much about information technology. Enhancing our tool sets and our fidelity with Batman and everything else moving forward, it's been a big jump for us and I retrieve particularly in The Walking Expressionless, it's still getting so much more additional effects and lighting, textures… It'll wait and feel more alive than The Walking Dead has ever felt, but it's still non striving for photorealism, it's striving for emotional realism. That'due south what'southward nigh important to u.s.a..

Thank you for your time.

Coming away from my chat with Job one thing was articulate: Telltale Games equally a studio aren't that interested in traditional games and genres, they desire to open up upwardly the medium itself to a brand new audience. Task went on to talk to me about Crowdplay, and how an entire audience tin band together to make decisions and shape the stories they're actively engaging with. Telltale is a studio focused on something new, something that breaks boundaries, and something that volition become your mum and dad involved in gaming.

Telltale may accept kickstarted a new take chances game revolution, simply their ambitions are much more than that, much more than just gaming as it currently is, and I'm excited for the future.