Hunt for Bloodraven beyond the Wall in upcoming Game of Thrones strategy RPG
By Dan Selcke
Over the years, various companies have released Game of Thrones video games, and I can’t say I’ve been particularly interested in any of them. But this new one sounds…intriguing.
Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall is an upcoming strategy RPG to be released for Android and iOS mobile devices later this year. What’s intriguing is the time period. The game is set decades before the events of Game of Thrones, when Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers is Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. As Song of Ice and Fire diehards know, Rivers vanished from his post, eventually becoming the Three-Eyed Raven. In this game, you play as his replacement, the new Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch who must fight giants, wildlings and other dangers in the wilds beyond the Wall. “Our story takes off basically hours after his disappearance where the player takes on the role of Lord Commander in his bed,” said creative director Justin Jones. “Then you explore the mysteries beyond the Wall.”
"We didn’t want [to] just retell the story that people have seen. We want this to be near enough to it in terms of the timelines that we use. We wanted to say pretty close to the story, but be different enough so that we can have our own identity and players could not know what’s going to happen or not just re-experience things they’ve already seen."
As far as video games set in Westeros go, this is a fairly deep cut. Watch the trailer:
The game is a partnership between HBO, developer Behaviour Interactive, and parent company Gaea. “Here at Gaea, you can’t bring up Game of Thrones without triggering an exciting and sometimes intense discussion,” said CEO Yann Wang. “The development and distribution of Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall have been a challenging endeavor fueled by great passion from everyone involved. Using state-of-the-art technologies, we are very excited to bring to fans and gamers, this game adaptation of what may be the most popular show around the world.”
The team has been working on the game for about two years. So far as gameplay goes, you have to recruit and manage characters from across the Seven Kingdoms, all of which have their own strengths and abilities, as you do your duty of protecting the realm from the threats beyond the Wall. The White Walkers are still pretty dormant at this point, but they can show up. I’d run if that happens.
Players can also use weirwood trees to travel to important points in history and collect different costumed versions of characters like Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister, an so on before using them in different gameplay modes, including combat. That’ll require some suspension of disbelief, but it’s a clever way to use an interesting wrinkle that’s mainly from the Song of Ice and Fire novels. There will also be player-vs-player combat. It doesn’t sound like the game will lack for content.
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Before this game, Jones worked on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Heroes of Dragon Age for Electronic Arts. Jones thinks that Galaxy of Heroes is a good reference point for Beyond the Wall. “What we love about those games is they allow you to continue to collect things inside a universe that you love for a really long time, like for years,” he said. “But what we wanted to do differently is to tell a story that kind of made sense. And this is a very story heavy IP.”
Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall will be out…well, we don’t have an exact release date. Soonish. You can preregister here.
dark. Next. Maisie Williams is a fish out of water and Lena Headey a puppet in post-Game of Thrones roles
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h/t Venture Beat
