Two weeks after Telltale Games laid off the bulk of its staff, the fate of the four-episode final season of the popular The Walking Dead series remains in question. Behind closed doors, the company continues to work on a deal that would provide for the third and fourth episodes to be finished by another company using former Telltale employees, according to two people familiar with negotiation. And the third episode is already nearly finished, those people said.

The deal is more nuanced than originally assumed, however, according to two people with knowledge of ongoing discussions, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to talk about the negotiations. They characterized the deal taking shape as Telltale handing off the final two episodes to a separate company which would hire former Telltale employees on a contract basis to finish the game. It would be that company’s name on the paychecks, one said, and not, both claimed, a case of Telltale getting additional funds and spending it on development rather than paying severance to recently laid off employees.

Those two people also said that episode three of The Walking Dead’s final season is essentially finished. In fact, they said, it was scheduled for a ratings review, which traditionally happens in the final stages of a game’s development prior to being sent for platform certification and to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, on the very day the mass layoffs occurred. All it still needed was a couple weeks of polish.

Episode four was also on its way, those people said, with a first round of voice work for the main characters already recorded and a first review of a playable version planned for sometime around the end of September.