Skybound to complete development of Telltale's The Walking Dead

The owners of The Walking Dead franchise has stepped in to finish Telltale's Walking Dead saga.

Robert Kirkman's Skybound hasn't handled internal development before, but it has recently added an internal games publishing team with the intent of releasing eight to ten games a year.

Skybound made the announcement via Twitter, and the firm's head of publishing Ian Howe indicated that the original team will complete the project. "We don't believe the game can be properly completed by anyone other than members of the original team," he tweeted.

The Walking Dead episodic video game franchise has been running for four series, and was currently half-way through its final run. However, the completion of the season was cast into doubt following mass redundancies at developer Telltale - where a team of 250 employees have been reduced to just 25.

The firm fell into trouble due to failing to find additional finance and the underwhelming sales of its more recent releases - including adventure games based on Batman, Minecraft and Guardians of the Galaxy. Future planned projects such as The Wolf Among Us Season Two, Game of Thrones Season Two and a Stranger Things tie-in have all been cancelled.

"It's been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course," CEO Pete Hawley said last month. "Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry."