Calum Petrie with five ideas for future Telltale games…
Telltale Games has now been pushing out narrative driven episodic games for a number of years, and the source material has always came from an outside property. The company has seen great success adapting the likes of The Walking Dead, Batman and even Minecraft into its own story-focused formula.
I was going to write this article a couple of weeks ago before SDCC, only to discover that it was announced that Telltale its developing new sequels to three of its more successful games in The Walking Dead, Batman and possibly the most unique of them all, The Wolf Among Us.
Today I would like to throw a list of five potential future games, since it looks like Telltale will be wrapping up its Walking Dead series with the next instalment. If you disagree or have any alternative ideas then please leave your comments below…
Mistborn:
The Mistborn series is a outstanding fantasy from author Brandon Sanderson, which spans many stories and has no shortage of material to be adapted. The series stared with the book “The Final Empire” and focused on a band of thieves looking to act in a noble fashion and overthrow a God Emperor who has lived for 1000 years.
The premise might sound a little far fetched but the world has humans who are known as Allomancers and they posses abilities by drawing upon metal, usually only being able to use one of the 8 abilities known to these Allomancers (or mistings as they are commonly called). Then there are the Mistborn who are people that can use all the abilities and are usually keen assassins or ruling figures within the noble houses.
If the Emperor ruled for at least 1000 years then there is more than enough wiggle room to adapt a story into the unwritten chapter of those years. I would like to see events away from the main narrative (like Telltale’s adaptation of Game of Thrones) while finding out more about the lesser known characters in the world.
Fallout:
This is a series that most people will know from gaming, or at least pop culture. It is hard to ignore the now iconic Vault boy who pops up online or in shop windows and anywhere that gaming culture is closely associated with. The series has a 1950’s themed apocalyptic future in which the USA has been the victim of nuclear war, while all over the country turmoil has cast the once great nation into mayhem. In the games, our character undergoes adventures into the Wasteland of the USA and embarks on a journey that usually has an overall greater impact on the world at large.
There is no lack of ideas where a Fallout setting could be adapted into the Telltale game – the various factions of New Vegas or the conflict between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave could offer any number of ideas for an episodic adventure. This is a similar idea to adapting the FPS/RPG hybrid Borderlands, and Telltale did a fantastic job adapting that source material for the amazing Tales from the Borderlands.
Westworld:
The TV series that is returning for a second season next year was originally a film in 1973, and the show from HBO is a reinvention of the source material. The line between sci-fi and classic Western is blurred in this bizarre concept where people attend and live within an adult theme park where all the other citizens are robots programmed with the personalities of Western frontiersmen.
The possibilities for adapting this into a game are still very open as there is a lot of material the TV series has not covered. Also, a great range of actors in the show would allow for a lot of potential voiceover cameos from the likes of Ed Harris, Antony Hopkins and Thandie Newton.
Deus Ex:
The Deus Ex series has had a strange reception, with the first game released in 2000 heralded as one of the greatest RPG games ever created, followed by a flop with 2003’s Deus Ex: Invisible War. Fast forward to 2011 with the breathtaking Deus Ex: Human Revolution where the game was set before the events of the original and was outstanding, before 2016’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which was visually breathtaking and filled with great ideas, yet the story lacked the legs to carry the game and ended with a disappointingly short story.
This is another IP that has an extremely rich source material that could branch off into other stories happening all over the world. The character of Adam Jensen may be “Generic Protagonist A” but he is the best damn example of a generic protagonist. The gruff voice, the black trench coat, the mysterious past and the love interest that once drove him; I find that there is still much more redemption to be had with this series and this character, and the soundtrack from Michael McCann is nothing short of outstanding. Much, much more of this series would be extremely welcome in my heart.
Tales from the Borderlands:
This one might be cheating since it is already a game that Telltale has developed. It was going to be my choice to put The Wolf Among Us on this part of the list, though to my delight they are already working on a second season. Borderlands is my second favourite Telltale adaptation (the first being The Wolf Among Us), and the work put into creating the correct atmosphere for every aspect of this game was mind blowing. The source material was already playable in the form of Borderlands, Borderlands 2 and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, though nothing was lost in the translation away from FPS to Telltale episodic adventure. The setting was perfect and the people who inhabit the world were created perfectly; the delicate balance between the game’s off the wall humour and the moments where your heart strings were tugged were both delivered beautifully.
There is more opportunity here to develop the existing story that Telltale created, and the likeable characters and the bizzare setting of Pandora are endless with avenues to take this rag tag bunch of vault hunter next.
As I mentioned before, if you feel something else should have been on this list or if you have a different opinion then I welcome you in the comments section.
You can follow me on Twitter – @Cetrie
