Marvel Teaming With Telltale Games, First Title Due in 2017
One of the top adventure game studios in the industry is partnering up with the house of Iron Man, the X-Men, Thor and Captain America, with the first project hitting in 2017.
Telltale Games has announced a partnership of epic proportions, as it will be working with Marvel Entertainment. Ever since the studio formed a little under a decade ago, Telltale Games has risen to the top of the adventure game scene with its unique take on episodic, narrative-driven games influenced by the point-and-click mechanics of LucasArts' PC games throughout the '90s. Ironically, LucasArts was dismantled upon its acquisition by Disney in 2013, which also acquired Marvel in 2009. The success of Telltale's projects have led to many other major studios adopting its same episode-based release format instead of focusing on major blockbuster game releases.
In the beginning of the year, Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner said the following about his company's next big project:
"We're already working on some of the biggest franchises in entertainment," said Bruner. "And when you add our unannounced partnerships and upcoming original IP, it's clear the most exciting time to be at Telltale is now, and there will continue to be more and more opportunity to innovate ahead of us."
Last year, TQ Jefferson, Marvel Entertainment's Vice President of Game Production admitted that his company was slowing down on how many video games they were launching for the sake of increasing the quality of the ones it would release, as many licensed Marvel games were sloppily rushed in development for the sake of meeting theatrical release dates.
Telltale Games has recently finished season two of its popular take on Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comics and the first season of The Wolf Among Us, which is based off of the Fables comic series. The studio is currently in the middle of its first seasons of Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones. It is also developing Minecraft: Story Mode. We should note that just a few months ago, Lionsgate Films, the studio known for the Expendables, Saw, Hunger Games and Twilight Saga movie franchises, staked a major investment in Telltale Games, with its CEO Jon Feltheimer joining Telltale's Board of Directors.
As the popularity of its comic and movie franchises are on the rise, Marvel Entertainment was in need of an excellent and reliable game studio that could start producing the quality games its franchises deserve. Based on Telltale's spectacular work with the comic book version of The Walking Dead and many other noteworthy and popular IPs, we can't wait to see what the future brings for both companies in the video game industry.