Forging an Iron Throne
By Kyle Mann | October 13, 2011 | Interviews | No comments | Share
We chatted a bit with Cyanide Montreal, the studio behind A Game of Thrones: Genesis, the first video game adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. The game is out in the wild, and we got some hands-on time and posted our full review. Still, we were curious as to how exactly a software studio goes about adapting a massively read and widely adored novel series: there are toes to step on and canon to violate. It’s a delicate balancing act from start to finish, so it takes a team of developers with respect and admiration for the source material to pull off a worthy adaptation:
Almost all of Cyanide’s staff had read the books before we started to work on the game. Many die-hard fans in the office! We decided to pursue the license because we thought it would make a great strategy game setting (and also a formidable universe for a RPG, the other game we are currently developing on George R.R. Martin’s IP).Yves Bordeleau, Studio Director
Still, simply being a fan of the work isn’t going to cut it; input from the top is required. George R. R. Martin and his team confirmed and validated all the historical points of reference the game touches in its missions, and this gives the team little leeway in crafting a workable singleplayer campaign: “Working with an IP of this magnitude is very hard and we had to make some compromise. For instance, we couldn’t modify the course of history by making a key character die before his actual fate in the history of Westeros.”
In fact, Bordeleau tells us that while they met with George R. R. Martin at the outset of the project to set a design direction and a general game outline, there was constant communication with regards to staying true to the A Song of Ice and Fire saga and history. Key characters and their lineage had to be kept consistent with the books, and locations demanded coordination with the extensive maps present in the novels and appendices. While not every foot-soldier and knight needed an in-novel counterpart of course, in a fantasy series with literally thousands of characters, there was a whole lot for Cyanide to keep straight.
Experience with previous titles always factors into current projects, and in Cyanide’s case, Blood Bowl and Chaos League were the games some of their team cut their development teeth on. In fact, the Lead Designer of Genesis was involved in both of those previous projects. But while the team pulled some manner of influence and inspiration from their earlier games, the focus was on new mechanics and gameplay tactics over looking backward at the old. And if you’ve played A Game of Thrones: Genesis, it’s clear that the game turned out anything but conventional in most respects.
