TellTale Wants to Work on Three to Four Games a Year

TellTale's president of publishing Steve Allison has told Polygon that the studio wants to develop three to four games per year going forward. 

He said they intend to "work on three or four great things" every year but said that all of their projects will not be worked on at the same time. 

"The idea of having four teams working on four different things doesn't exist here. The way we make the games, it's just not the same. It fits with the way they build the game, the episodic nature and the way they play like television shows. It's not 50 guys working on the same game for 18 months."

Speaking about the recently announced Game of Thrones adaptation Allison explained that the games will defer to HBO's TV series rather than George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga. 

"Creatively, we're going to defer to the show because we are using HBO's license. Playing the game should feel like watching the show and we'll be making lots of decisions the same way the showrunners do. We've talked with them about how they make their decisions and how they pace their scenes, what they do when they face a big plotline and what to keep and cut. We're taking their expertise and applying it to the material we bring to the table."

The deal with HBO has been described as a "multi-year, multi-title" partnership. 

Allison went to discuss their partnership with Gearbox to develop Tales From the Borderlands revealling that the project was conceived at the 2012 VGAs when the two studios started talking backstage. 

"We could have easily left it and chalked it up to too much tequila, 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."

Ultimately Allison said Telltale approached Gearbox about making the project a reality and Gearbox accepted their proposal.

"Another long standing desire, especially for our founders, is to apply our concept of episodic entertainment to a giant gaming franchise. When properties become a franchise, people fall in love with the characters. [Co-founder] Kevin [Bruner]'s dream was to find one that has great characters and passionate fans and try to do something with it."

With The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us as well, it seems TellTale will be very busy indeed.