Telltale caught everyone by surprise when the developer announced earlier this month that it would be applying its famed episodic style popularized in The Walking Dead to the hot properties of Game of Thrones and Gearbox's Borderlands series. The announcements were brief, and not much was known about the games at the time. Now, the company's Senior VP of Publishing, Steve Allison, came forward and told Polygon what the future holds.
First up in the order of business was Tales from the Borderlands, where Allison first recalled how Telltale and Gearbox hooked up, and, as Gearbox's Randy Pitchford described, decided to "have a baby."
"We were backstage at the [2012] Spike VGAs," started Allison. "Gearbox was sitting at table one and we were sitting at table two - we were there for The Walking Dead. We got to talking a little bit, and I don't remember when it became, 'we should do this thing,' but it happened over a few cocktails."
"We could have easily left it and chalked it up to too much tequila," he added, "but we followed up when we got home, and they remembered the conversation. The Borderlands universe has so much story potential, all those great characters. There's a narrative there in Borderlands 2 but it serves a certain purpose, and we can serve a difference purpose with it for fans of the franchise."
Telltale's take on Borderlands will no doubt turn the series on its ear. For one thing, it's not a shooter, and players won't be playing as Vault Hunters, but not many more details have been revealed as of yet. The team is applying the same sort of strategy to both Tales From the Borderlands and the Game of Thrones title, making both of them adventure titles.
Obviously, this will no doubt be difficult, but the team was looking for a challenge, Allison telling Polygon, "We want franchises that are really difficult to translate into traditional gaming, we don't want to make another Walking Dead first-person shooter. What works with the franchises we have it the characters, the story and drama and the relationships. We look for franchises that are huge and have all those elements."
Both games are planned to release sometime in 2014. We'll keep you posted as more information comes to light.