Telltale’s foray into the world of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire saga sees author and assistant to Martin, Ty Corey Franck brought on board. He joins the Telltale team as a story consultant, assigned by HBO, the network that brought the books to television.
With Martin still working away on the next book and working on the show in his capacity as executive producer, it’s probably for the best that he’s not also working with Telltale.
Franck, along with collaborator Daniel Abraham, writes under the pen name James S. A. Corey. Their Expanse series – which is in its fourth book – has been nominated for a number of awards, and they also wrote the Star Wars novel, Honor Among Thieves.
The last two Game of Thrones titles were uneven to say the least. So, Telltale explains to the New York Times, the studio needed to prove they could handle the IP. HBO requested a prototype, and Telltale knocked up a 10 minute demo of what its take on the series would look like.
“We were struck by the sophisticated level of work and high-quality approach to storytelling in all of their games,” Josh Goodstadt, the vice president for global licensing at HBO, said. “We quickly recognized that this same level of quality and dedication could be a great complement to the richness of Game of Thrones.”
Telltale has been keeping pretty quiet about the game. No information about the story, characters or themes has been released by the studio. Even sketches of characters, the New York Times says, plastered on the walls of Telltale’s offices, are merely samples.
Cheers, The New York Times.