After finding success with a formula for TV-like episodic games, some of which were based on other people’s TV shows, Telltale Games has announced that it will now just start making its own TV shows. Lionsgate—the entertainment company whose television ventures include Mad Men and Orange Is The New Black—has made what it calls a “significant investment” in the Walking Dead developer, with its CEO also joining the studio’s board. That partnership will produce something Telltale is calling “super shows,” (no, not that kind of Super Show) which Telltale’s CEO, Kevin Bruner, detailed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
The idea is for Telltale to create its own TV/video game hybrid series, where a new episode of the show would always be released along with a new episode of the game. You could play or watch the individual halves of the production, but only by combining the two does the show become “super,” according to Bruner. “If you play the interactive episode first,” Bruner told Entertainment Weekly, “certain elements of the scripted episode portion will be tailored to reflect some choices made in your interactive play through. If you watch the show before playing, some elements in the interactive portions may be presented differently than if you played first.” And if you’d rather just watch the TV show without the pressure of making minute changes to its plot with your video game decisions, Bruner said a static standalone version of the show will be released on its own at some point.
Bruner didn’t say what this original Telltale “super show” is about and when we might expect to see it. He did maintain that Telltale won’t be abandoning its traditional video game adaptations, which is a good thing considering its Game Of Thrones and Tales From The Borderlands series are currently amid their first seasons, and its Minecraft adventure game is on the horizon. “We expect to have a healthy mix of both in our plans in the years ahead,” Bruner said.