Thursday evening had some great news for anyone who just can’t get enough of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The video games awards show The Game Awards included a few exclusive video game announcements in between the awards. One of which has me very excited.
Telltale Games, developer of some very well-loved and award-winning games such as their ‘The Walking Dead’ series, ‘Tales From the Borderlands,’ and ‘The Wolf Among Us,’ announced that they are in the process of developing ‘Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: A Telltale Series.’ A bit of a mouthful, I know, but this is very exciting news, both for fans of the movie and fans of Telltale Games. It’s been known for a while that Marvel has been working with Telltale to develop a game to be released some time in 2017, but what property that game would be based on was unknown until now. There had been some evidence before Thursday that ‘Guardians’ would be the property Telltale has been working on, but Telltale had been understandably quiet about it. The announcement was accompanied by the following teaser trailer.
Quite the teaser, if you ask me. It raises a few questions: What’s planet is that? Why are the Guardians there? Why is Starlord’s walkman out in space, still playing but obviously not listened to? Where is Starlord and what happened to him? Wait a second, is that even Starlord’s walkman? It looks like the same design (sans “SONY” logo, but that’s probably a rights issue) but the tape inside of it says “Rad Mix” not “Awesome Mix.” Is it meant to be the same tape or not?
If you haven’t played any Telltale games before now, they’re heavily focused on story with relatively few game mechanics beyond a few quick-time events and choosing what dialog you want your protagonist to use. They’re pretty much the closes thing to an “interactive” movie anyone’s ever come up with that I’ve ever seen, and that includes all those cheesy full-motion video games from the 90s. While some people might balk at the idea of playing a movie, I must emphasize that Telltale excels at their form of storytelling. And while most of their games take on darker themes, they’ve also proved that they can mix lighthearted moments in as well. If you want an idea of just how perfect a match Telltale is for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ try out their game ‘Tales From the Borderlands.’ It’s an excellent mix of action, humor, and scenes that are both heartwarming and heart wrenching that it will leave you wanting more. If Telltale can pull off with ‘Guardians’ what they pulled off with ‘Tales From the Borderlands,’ then Guardians’ fans everywhere are in for a huge treat.
So far there has been no word if the actors from the movie will reprise their roles for the video game or if they will have to be replaced with other voice actors. This question has also been made a bit more complicated with the current SAG-AFTRA voice actors’ strike for better working conditions and improved compensation for voice actors who work in video games.
‘Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: A Telltale Series’ is slated to be released in 2017 on PC, consoles, and mobile devices.
