For Telltale Games fans, this past week hasn’t been about waiting for The Walking Dead (okay, yes it has; it always is), but about the rumor that the company is in development on a game set in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe, a possible union many are calling a dream partnership. Certainly there’s a lot of potential there; Telltale has shown its strengths in creating character-driven narratives again and again, and Martin’s series, regardless of flaws or strengths, is known for the same.
But though I love Telltale’s work, and though I follow ASoIaF media, I can’t help but approach this with some trepidation. Good news? Possible. But: is there room for another narrative that brushes on the events of the series?
Now, I haven’t read the Fables comics, nor have I finished The Wolf Among Us, so I can’t speak as to how that game bumps up against the comic storylines, but I stay caught up with The Walking Dead show and comic, and not only does the game operate parallel to the story, but the player in the game really can’t have a major impact on the other stories. It’s not like someone’s going to discover a cure for the zombies or anything, and unless the game presents a situation in which major characters from the other storylines can be killed (and they won’t), then the different properties might as well exist in separate universes (and, in fact, the game and comic exist in one, while the show exists in another version of the same universe).
But with Game of Thrones/ASoIaF, things are a little different. For the moneyed and/or titled and ambitious, there is but one aim — holding the throne, supporting the person who does, or being held in high regard by the person who does. In other words, there’s only one game in town, and that’s the game of thrones, and that game in the present-day storyline is pretty well set… and set for the years leading up to it, as well. In fact, the books, with the huge page count and the freedom to foray at will into flashback and early timeline, have set major, secondary, and tertiary events for decades prior to what’s happening in the books and show, and if a player can’t impact or change what’s to happen, what’s the real point?
As much as I’d like to get excited about a possible Telltale-Thrones partnership, that’s what I keep coming back to: what room is there for one such as I? Cyanide’s middling action-RPG presented a reportedly excellent story that filled in some gaps, and allowed the player to rub elbows with major characters in events set right before the books and show begin (with some overlap to the end of the show’s season one), but the strokes are broad. The royal bloodlines, such a major factor in show and books, figure in, but no path to alter major canon storylines is offered, of course. You stir the kettle a bit, but what happens in the books and show will always happen: some folks played the game of thrones, and some died.
There are plenty of similar opportunities around the main story for a game to play with, but they are limited. Sure, take on the role of a minor lord and raise the level of your house, but know you can’t aspire too high, because all those major houses are pretty well set. Sure, join the Night’s Watch, but soon it will no longer resemble the Wall-walkers we see early in the canon story. Sure, adventure in the Free Cities, but know the Targaryen tide will roll in at some point. Because this isn’t like the Walking Dead. Sure, Game of Thrones is about survival, but there’s really only two versions of such survival: that pursued by the armies of peasants and serving folks who are often slaughtered by events sparked by the titled jockeying for position, or the survival of the titled themselves in games of war and loyalty. The first is somewhat boring and has no real impact. This is not a world in which a small man can rise. Martin’s dark universe has not allowed for much of that, and rightly so — leave that to the spinners of fairy tales. And the second? Well, see above; those wars are waging, bodies have been counted, and there are few to no new houses that could rise, and any real impact would change canon.
So I’ll offer a third option, one I doubt will be taken, but could be glorious: wouldn’t it be amazing if they threw canon out the window and allowed players the chance to rewrite Westerosi history if they wanted? Play as Ned Stark, or Cersei Lannister, or any of the main characters, and see what you would do with their events. Write your own game.
I’d love it. Alternately, set us far back in time, at the dawn of the First Men, or even in old Valyria, or drop us into the Free Cities a hundred years before the events of the books. This is an enormous universe, and while it would be fun to see cameos of the characters we know and love (or hate), there’s a lot of room to play without worrying about how things touch on canon. That, to me, seems like the best approach to mimic what the company has done with The Walking Dead to such success. Telltale knows how to situate the player in the middle of a dramatic, intense experience without fooling with canon. I just hope they can do it again.
