Telltale co-founder Brian Waddle joins Blind Squirrel Games

Blind Squirrel Games announced its newest hire, Telltale Games co-founder Brian Waddle, will serve as senior vice president for its business development division.

Waddle helped found the second iteration of Telltale with Jamie Ottille that opened in 2019 after the original's closure that same year. The four-year-old developer's most recent release is The Expanse: A Telltale Series, which will conclude next week on September 21.

His hiring comes as part of a larger "comprehensive rebrand" for the 13-year-old studio. Since its founding in 2010, the developer has established partnerships with major developers like 2K, Amazon Games, and Sony. 

"Since our inception, we’ve been focused on elevating the craft of video game creation through a unique approach to development," wrote CEO Brad Hendricks. "We recognized it was time to reimagine our brand. [...] Hiring Brian as our new SVP of Business Development is a huge part of that direction."

"Having been in this business for double digit years, I’ve known about Blind Squirrel Games since its inception and have enjoyed seeing them grow and develop a respected name in this industry," added Waddle. "I am looking forward to helping the team forge ahead in achieving the next 13 successful years."

Blind Squirrel is hungry to make a name for itself

If Blind Squirrel has its way, the future will see it get to work on its own games. Following the release of 2016's Bioshock: The Collection, the studio has helped development on other remasters (Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Sonic Colors: Ultimate) and helped co-develop Amazon Games' New World. 

As part of this endeavor into original properties, it's opened an office in Auckland, New Zealand, with expansions into South America and Eastern Europe in the near future. 

"We’ve been really looking at internally at how we’re structuring our business," Hendricks told VentureBeat. "And we looked at key personnel as well, like who we needed to bring us into the future. And that is part of Brian Waddle’s story."

Hendricks acknowledged that work-for-hire can only do so much for a studio, and will continue to do so when possible. But he was candid in saying "a lot of people" within the company "want to establish Blind Squirrel Games as a premier developer."

"We want to do our own thing. We’re going to work with publishers to help us bring our games out." According to Hendricks, Blind Squirrel has three unannounced projects in the works that the staff has made "good progress" on, which will involve taking existing properties from the mobile space into console and PC.