Ex-Telltale devs form AdHoc Studio and set sights on narrative-focused games

Four developers that departed Telltale Games in the years leading up to the company’s turbulent end have rejoined forces, this time as the freshly founded indie game developer AdHoc Studio. 

The team is made up of Michael Choung, Nick Herman, Dennis Lenart, and Pierre Shorette and aims to use its small studio size to explore adventurous and risky ideas that they say would typically be difficult to pitch and develop with a larger team.

“We liked the idea that if it was just the four of us, we’d be able to more confidently wade into unfamiliar water,” explained Lenart in an interview with Variety. Though Choung departed Telltale in 2016 and Herman, Lenart, and Shorette left in early 2017, the four had discussed starting a studio of their own while still at Telltale. Now, just a few years later, each has left positions at companies like Night School Studio and Ubisoft to found AdHoc.

So far, the studio hasn’t announced any projects or partnerships, but conversations from that full interview outline how the team wants to create interactive experiences, potentially even FMV games, that appeal to a similar audience as Bandersnatch, Netflix’s recent foray into Choose Your Own Adventure-like programming.

“Making interactive experiences with real actors on the screen is something we’ve always talked about,” Shorette tells Variety. “We all have backgrounds and interest in film and television, so combining that with our experience in games is something we’re exploring right now.”