When Telltale Games premiered not only Tales From the Borderlands, but also a Game of Thrones video game at VGX, it brought their 2014 line-up of titles to four, when you add in The Wolf Among Us (episodes 2-5) and The Walking Dead Season 2 (episodes 2-5).
Speaking to Polygon, Steve Allison, Senior VP of Publishing at Telltale Games, revealed how all four of the series’ aren’t in development at once, with more news regarding Tales From the Borderlands and Game of Thrones expected once The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us begin to wrap up. Allison continued:
We all work in the same office and we don’t outsource our work. People who come to Telltale from other video game companies struggle with how we make games because it’s so different from working at other studios. The concept of teams here doesn’t necessarily exist; we have groups doing certain things like building sets or animating scenes, and a leadership team that has producers to keep people in check and directors to direct episodes.
Noting how animators and developers will move back and forth between the projects as needed, Allison said Telltale plans on making “three or four great things” every year in the future.
One of those “great things” we know about is Game of Thrones, which Telltale Games pitched to HBO due to their passion for it, and the process took nearly a year of conversations before finally being greenlit. While the specifics of the deal aren’t known, the original press release stated it would be a multi-year, multi-title partnership, with Allison saying, “We’re super happy to work with them, and we’ll be working on a lot of games for many years to come.”
When it comes to Telltale Games’ Game of Thrones, you can expect it to borrow from the books and TV show, but since they’re using HBO’s license, they’ll mostly defer to the show:
Creatively, we’re going to defer to the show because we are using HBO’s license. Playing the game should feel like watching the show and we’ll be making lots of decisions the same way the showrunners do. We’ve talked with them about how they make their decisions and how they pace their scenes, what they do when they face a big plotline and what to keep and cut. We’re taking their expertise and applying it to the material we bring to the table.
What do you think about the Game of Thrones game from Telltale Games being more closely related to the TV show? Let us know in the comments below.
