Oh my darling Clementine
You hear that? That’s the sound of yet another game being removed from Steam and landing exclusively on their newly found rival.
Skybound Games, the new publisher of The Walking Dead: The Final Season, has provided an update regarding the remaining two episodes of the season. First up, the third episode called “Broken Toys”, releases on January 15, 2019. We also now know that the PC version is now exclusive to the Epic Games store.
Well, sort of exclusive. If you already purchased the season pass on Steam, you’ll still receive the final two episodes. For everyone else, if you want to play the season, you’ll have to purchase the game from the Epic Games store.
As to why this discussion was made, both the President of Interactive Dan Murray and Skybound Games CEO Ian Howe released a statement regarding this. Basically, Epic Games was involved with getting the original Telltale team back together after the company went under. So it’s fitting that the Epic Games store would reap the benefit of it all.
“The team at Epic owns a major chapter in the history of the game industry. We’re excited to work together on their latest transformative event with the launch of the Epic Games Store. Epic stepped up to the plate immediately to work with us in order to bring the original team back together and ensure fans will receive the completed season of TELLTALE’S THE WALKING DEAD: THE FINAL SEASON”
So while those who already owned the season pass on Steam or GOG aren’t getting left out. It does go to show that Epic Games isn’t fooling around here. They just grabbed yet another series that outside of the season pass, will no longer be available to purchase on Steam.
I just checked on Steam and sure enough, you can no longer purchase the previous three episodes. Replacing them is a demo for the game. Which is rather odd, since you can’t get the any of the episodes on the platform anymore.
I’m a bit bummed about it all, as it means I’ll need to add yet another launcher to my PC. But I suppose this can’t be helped as the PC as a gaming platform doesn’t have on governing body. Which is exactly the one thing I really respect when it comes to gaming on consoles.
As for Steam, we talked about how Valve needs to start taking these other stores as a threat. Or we may see games starting to disappear from the platform. We’ve already seen several titles make the jump elsewhere, and something tells me this one won’t be the last.
Source: Skybound Games
