The inaugural Tribeca Games Festival — spawning from the Tribeca Film Festival — kicked off Friday night in New York City with a concert and crowd-play session of Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Day two of the festival brings a wide variety of games industry luminaries to the stage to discuss current trends — particularly the evolution of narrative in games.
All of the action starts at 10 a.m. (ET) on Saturday. Check out the schedule below, and stick around to watch the Twitch stream of the panels right here (all times listed are ET).
- 10-10:50 a.m. — The Stanley Parable creator Davey Wreden will sit down with The Banner Saga technical director John Watson in one of the festival’s “Retro Active” conversations. The discussion will be moderated by Polygon’s Chris Grant.
- 11-11:50 a.m. — In 1992, The Lawnmower Man, a film centered around increasing intelligence via virtual reality, was released. This 25th anniversary talk will bring the film’s director Brett Leonard and principal filmmaker for Google VR Jessica Brillhart together to discuss the past, present, and future of the virtual reality through the lens of the film. The conversation will be moderated by Alex Goldman of Gimlet Media.
- 12-12:50 p.m. — Jonathan Morin, the creative director on Watch Dogs 2, will discuss the real world implications and insights of Ubisoft’s open-world San Francisco hacking/surveillance game with Matt Thompson of The Atlantic.
- 2:30-3:20 p.m. — Campo Santo studio director Sean Vanaman will talk about the studio’s indie hit Firewatch with Jamin Warren of Kill Screen.
- 3:30-4:20 p.m. — Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu will join Kiki Wolfkill, an executive producer at 343 Industries working on Halo, for an Achievement Oriented discussion hosted by Ben Lindbergh and Jason Conception of The Ringer.
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Those five conversations lead up to the three keynote presentations feature a few of the industry’s most towering giants.
- 4:30-5:20 p.m. — Sam Lake, Remedy Entertainment co-founder and writer on the Max Payne franchise, Alan Wake, and, most recently, Quantum Break, will take the stage with Limitless film director Neil Burger. The conversation will be moderated by Glixel’s Chris Sillentrop.
- 5:30-6:20 p.m. — Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear franchise, will talk about the influence of film in his work, both past and present, so we may learn more about his upcoming title Death Stranding. Kojima will be joined on stage with The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley.
- 6:30-7:20 p.m. — The show will close out with the BioShock series creator Ken Levine and Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman. Clive Thompson of Wired will moderate their discussion.
