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Telltale’s Game of Thrones will feature five playable characters and the bloody Boltons

Telltale Games’ upcoming Game of Thrones adventure features five playable characters… with a unique twist, according to a recent interview with the International Business Times.

“In Game of Thrones we’re taking that multi-protagonist design even further with five playable characters from the same family whose choices affect everyone in the family, and that adds a whole new layer to things that we’re really excited about,” Telltale’s Senior VP of Publishing Steve Allison told IBTimes.

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Related: Telltale teases Deepwood and Ironborn connections for its Game of Thrones series

The complex inter- and intrafamily politics of Westeros are a central feature of George R. R. Martin’s series, and represent a perfect backdrop for Telltale’s narrative tinkering. Previous revelations from the studio have alluded to the Greyjoy and the Forrester houses. The Forresters are the most likely contender for the central house of the story, since they are the least familiar from the books and thus most open to Telltale’s original machinations.

Here’s the latest tease:

"…AND FLAYED MEN RIDE THE KINGSROAD…"#GameOfThrones: A @TelltaleGames Series#IronFromIce pic.twitter.com/WqMScTN1ox

— Telltale (@telltalegames) October 30, 2014

This new tweet, much like those that hinted at the Greyjoys and Forresters, is a title card bearing a cryptic statement and a sigil belonging to house Bolton. The quote — “There’s squids in the Wolfswood, and the flayed men ride the Kingsroad” — supports the theory that the Forresters are the stars of the game. The speaker, presumably a Forrester, refers to both Bolton’s flayed man and Greyjoy’s “squids”: The sigil of the Ironborn is a golden kraken.

In HBO’s TV series (spoiler warning for those that haven’t kept up), the Greyjoys raid the North to fill the power vacuum that opens up after the Stark’s collapse. The Boltons, meanwhile, were officially granted dominion by King’s Landing for their loyalty to the Lannisters during the war.

The two houses, Greyjoy and Bolton both, became particularly tangled up when Ramsay Snow, the bastard son of house patriarch Roose Bolton, captured Theon Greyjoy and tortured him into submission until his identity shattered and reformed as the twisted servant Reek. If and how these events factor into Telltale’s series is yet to be seen.

Telltale’s Game of Thrones series will come out later in 2014 at an as-yet-unannounced date.

Will Fulton
Former Staff Writer, Gaming
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
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