I’ve heard bits and pieces about the upcoming Game of Thrones (roleplaying game) over the last year or so. Nothing much but just the topic alone caught my interest; I’m a huge fan of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R.R. Martin (and the HBO series is pretty good, too… though not as good as the books).
Anyways, I was perusing the “Specials” and “Coming Soon” tabs of Steam as I like to do on the weekends to see if there is anything on sale that I didn’t get for one reason or another… or if I needed to set something aside for some new games coming out soon. And I saw that a “Game of Thrones” is currently scheduled to come out in May 2012 (and the imagine on the website says May 15th). I say “currently scheduled” because I’ve been a gamer (and worked in the industry) long enough to know that dates slip. But this close to the date… pretty safe to assume it will be May (although it may be late May) since you have to have your gold master in usually 30 days before your ship date (and some other fun stuff).
I was never quite sure what the game would be about. The official website isn’t too helpful in that and this is all Steam has to say about the plot:
Experience an amazing adventure in one of the most complete and fascinating universes in medieval-fantasy literature. Game of Thrones is a great Role Playing Game that puts you at the core of a thrilling plot, where your fate will be guided by vengeance, allegiance and honor.
I was wondering if it would be a game about the past – around the time as the short-stories of “Ser Duncan the Tall” but, after looking at Cyanide Studio’s website, this looks to do more like LOTRO did – you’re playing during the book series:
We didn’t really want to adapt the novels, it would have break the tension for the fans of the original saga. We wished for the players to discover Westeros for the first time or from another point of view. To make sure that this universe would be respected, we did the simplest thing : we associated ourselves with the author.
A Game of Thrones (AGOT), the roleplaying game, brings you into a grown-up adventure parallel to the original piece. You will take part into a whole new story full of plots. We didn’t planned on a time shift to put our story back or forward in the original timeline. On the contrary, we adapted our story to the original events so that the player could meet the main characters of the saga in these new chapters.
This whole new adventure will offer to alternatively play two brand new characters: Allester, the red priest and Mors, the night watchman. They will be brought into the vile plots of the noble houses. Will you be able to see clear through the game of thrones ? Beware though, since in this game, one wins or dies.
There are also some more details in the description section of the video (below). Unless it gets a horrible Metacritic rating, I will probably but it just for the sake of it having to do with A Song of Ice and Fire… and my hope is Georges R.R. Martin gave them a few clues or lore tidbits to put into the game that you might not get elsewhere. So while it will be heating up here in Texas (probably in the 90s+ by then); Winter is coming… in May!