Telltale Games, also responsible for the Walking Dead video game series, has confirmed that it will be adapting HBO fantasy epic Game of Thrones from next year. The games will be released as an episodic series and HBO is partnering in their development.
“We’ll be taking advantage of all the fiction to make something great,” said Telltale CEO Dan Connors at the VGX 2013 awards show. “We’re just really getting into it right now and thinking about characters — who has the most at stake, who has the biggest impact on the world.”
We’ve seen Game of Thrones titles before. There was a so-so role-playing game released in 2012, and there’s also a free-to-play MMO in the works, but this new series of games promises to be much more ambitious.
If it follows the same template the studio has used for the Walking Dead, the game will be an interactive, character-driven adventure that relies heavily on plot and storytelling.
Telltale Games has released a fairly nondescript preview trailer for the series, which reveals very little about it, so gamers eager to enter the world of the Starks and the Lannisters will have to wait until the new year to see anything of real substance.
Game of Thrones is adapted from George R. R. Martin’s fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire. Season 4 is premiering in 2014, while season 3 finished its run in June, breaking Internet piracy records along the way. If you’re just getting started with the series, you’ve got five books and 30 episodes to catch up on over Christmas.
Update: HBO and Telltale have confirmed that their agreement is a multi-year, multi-title partnership. The first episodic game will appear in 2014 for home consoles, Mac, and PC.
