Telltale Games Developing 'Super Show' With Lionsgate

Telltale Games is a exceedingly busy developer these days. Between Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands, an upcoming Minecraft game, and potential future seasons of both The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, it's difficult to imagine the adventure game developer taking on too many more projects without straight-up exploding.

But that's just what the company is doing. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner announced a new joint venture with Lionsgate Entertainment for an original show/game that Bruner refers to as a "Super Show." What does a Super Show entail, you might ask? Here's Bruner's description:

A “Super Show” episode combines one part of interactive playable content with one part of scripted television style content. Both pieces, when combined together, are what make an actual Super Show “episode.” As we’ve been developing the series, we’re using both mediums in concert to deliver our story. Developing both aspects simultaneously is key to utilizing this new medium. Both parts are first class citizens during the writing and design process. It’s not an interactive series with a show, or a TV show with a game, but a story integrated in a way that only Telltale can do. For us it’s a very natural evolution of the interactive story telling expertise we’ve pioneered.

Bruner goes on to explain that each Super Show episode will include both the scripted and interactive components, and will release on a schedule that he described as "more predictable like TV scheduling, but still a bit further apart like our games." This first original Super Show, which is in development with an as-yet-unannounced "world-class creative partner," will be set in an original universe, though Bruner hinted that future Super Show projects could be developed with existing licenses. He also notes that Telltale still plans to release more games using their current episodic format.

As someone who has played (and enjoyed more often than not) Telltale's recent episodic outings, this interview leaves me somewhat split. In some respects, it sounds like a natural progression for the kinds of transmedia storytelling plenty of other companies have developed in recent years, but I also can't help but be wary of anything that spreads Telltale any thinner than it already appears to be from the outside looking in. The company has already had difficulty keeping the quality of its seasonal releases at a consistent level (as this recent Kotaku story helpfully illustrates). Lionsgate has invested in Telltale as a part of this deal, which should afford them additional resources for this project.

We'll bring you more on this new Super Show project as it becomes available.

This seems weird

Quantum Break and now Telltale... *sniff sniff* I smell a fad...

Also: @alex, your writing style and flow keeps staying on point! Great work!

Our first Super Show is an original IP we’ve developed in collaboration with a world-class creative partner who’s just as excited about the format as we are. Together we’ve created a world where we can really demonstrate the power of this new format and leverage the toolkit it brings to us as storytellers, much like we’ve done in the [game-only] space.

Who is the mysterious world-class creative partner? Begin your speculations and rumors now.

Each Super Show episode [the interactive game and the scripted episode] will be released as a package designed so that you can consume the interactive portion or watch the scripted show portion in any order you’d like. For instance, if you play the interactive episode first, 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.

That's probably the most interesting aspect so far, it implies a pretty big narrative disconnect between the scripted and the interactive parts.

This basically sounds like how Quantum Break was pitched but with an actual episodic release schedule. You can't kill FMV I guess.

I might just be narrowly minded or still burned from the praise The Order has received for its "cinematic" qualities, and I certainly trust Telltale as a dev, but this just seems like a great way to water down a media experience. When you combine two unique ways of expressing a narrative, you have to make concessions that limit the utilization of what makes either medium special.

For me, when a game expresses anything important in a cut-scene, it has failed at being a game. It could be argued that many of Telltale's recent games are little more than cut-scenes, but the player still trusts that any crucial part of the story will unfold based on their own actions. To shift some of those moments to a non-interactive TV show, does nothing more than dilute that experience.

Still, I hope my view is just too narrow, and I'm sure Telltale knows what they're doing better than I. I just hope we're not ushering in a brand new media age where Clue, The VCR Mystery Game is on the cutting edge.

So.... The Hunger Games: The [Interactive] Video Game?

Is it bad that I just don't care about these games and just want another Sam & Max or Tales of Monkey Island?

So I have to go out of my way to watch the rest of the cutscenes?

So now video games are trying to be like TV instead of movies?

Telltale & Eric Super Show Great Job!

You know what's NEVER blown up in people's faces? Assuming that people who like television want to play video games, and that people who like video games want to watch TV.

This is going to fail; nobody will engage with it.

Seems like a weird concept. But hey something for everyone...right?

So basically Bear Sterns Bravo, then.

I think Telltale is trying to do too much and it is going to be bad when everything falls apart. Their current content isn't ripping up the charts in quality (based on word of mouth) so I don't understand why they want more on their plate. It reminds me of a Rovio or Zynga where they have a hugely successful game/product and they (try to) expand and venture into other things too quickly and they eventually burn.

I wouldn't be surprised if Telltale doesn't exist in 3 years and that saddens me.

Sounds interesting, but what I really want is. Hunger Games Telltale project set in a games before the books. Seems like a no-brainer

I really enjoy post-Walking-Dead Telltale, but at the same time, I wish they brought back games with a focus on puzzles.

Telltale Please Stop 2015?

I'll pass. Telltale is hugely overrated and the whole hugely simplified adventure game formula is wearing a bit thin. Take a break, build a working god damn engine, then come back with a good story and meaningful gameplay.

Cool I guess *shrug* Where is my new Borderlands episode???????

I want a new Monkey Island real bad, and I dunno who's gonna give it to me at this point.

This article made me realize how few text articles giantbomb has been putting out recently. Miss you Patrick :(

@rirse: I don't care if we smack it into them or smack it out of them, just so long as there's smacking involved!

How about releasing a bugfree game first, TellTale? I've read numereous complaints about games dropping to slideshow frames per second, savedata getting wiped at random or episodes hard crashing or not booting up at all. Ubisoft got a lot of scrutiny for Unity but compared to TellTale, they're saints.

TTG's version of "playable" and "game" LOL.

Keep in mind that Telltale released 6 games in 2010, long before their mainstream success (one can assume the company grew a bit after Walking Dead made them a trillion bucks). If I'm not mistaken they released exactly 17 episodes between april and december of that year, and some of them were among the best they've done.

They've always been juggling between multiple projects, and they still make quality games (except that disaster that was Jurassic Park), so I'm honestly not too worried... The golden rule is to not buy their games if you're the impatient type, because the waiting period between each episode did increase significantly since the Sam & Max days.

I'm more worried about what they chose to make lately. Minecraft was already super weird but this is something else...

Supah Show!

So even LESS interactive than their current stuff.

Maybe they'll be able to make a good TV show. They've certainly never made a good game.

As someone who has become increasingly cynical about Telltale's output as of late, this seems like a thing I can continue to be cynical about.

I always hope this sort of "transmedia" stuff will work out, but it hasn't yet. It always suffers from the broader focus.

Interesting to note that John Riccitiello has been hired to serve on TTG's board of directors. While it seemed like he was starting to make a few decent moves towards the end of his tenure at EA, it does make me worry for the future direction of TTG.

Although I'm already starting to get a bit wary of them since they started taking on loads of new projects that seem increasingly less creative and more profit driven.

Well, I sure hope their scheduling is better than it is for their games because they can't keep a schedule for anything.

Tyler Perry's House of Pain: A Telltale Games styled FMV adventure

*clears throat*

Make a Hellblazer or Y: The Last Man game already! Telltale crushed it with The Walking Dead and Fables, they clearly know how to handle graphic novel IP better than anyone else. I'd love to finally see John Constantine or Yorick Brown in a video game!

When I was a kid there was an "interactive movie" in select theaters called Mr. Payback. The audience voted on decisions using joysticks that were installed in all of the seats.

This transmedia stuff has potential but it's going to be a while before someone cracks the code.

Sounds weird and potentially interesting. I hope they experiment with different control schemes for whatever it is though. That's usually been the least engaging aspect of their releases.

isn't Remedy pursuing something similar with Quantum Break? Man, been awhile since we've heard anything about that game..

Breaking: High-level Lionsgate employee accidentally reads half an article about Telltale's Game of Thrones deal on Forbes.com, then has this incredible idea while doing bumps

So..basically what Syfy tried to do with Defiance?

I've been enjoying the Walking Dead games and the first episode of Game of Thrones was good, from what i hear Borderlands and the Fables game was good and i really liked Back to the Future and Strong bad so its not like they havent got a good track record. Maybe the extra cash and resource will fix some of the perceived shortcummings.

Fuck. That.

Why don't they develop an engine that's not shit first?

So this is the "biggest thing we've ever done" they were talking about? Screw that.

In a way that's interesting news insofar as it is a sign of Telltale actually trying to innovate instead of grinding the same boring, mildly interactive epidodes year after year. On the other hand it really seems like they're massively over-extending which is bad for the significant crowd of people who really seem to enjoy TT's weird brand of interactive fiction.

Personally, this seems like a win-win sitaution. I don't care if TT goes under if that makes room for interactive storytelling that's more in line with what I want out of games that attempt that kind of thing. In the incredibly unlikely case that TT manages to do something interesting with the transmedia stuff they can only get more relevant to me, hardly less.

The last TT episode I actually pretty much liked was "Starved for Help" from The Walking Dead, Season 1. Then I paid some attention to the pilots for GoT and Fables only to find out that there still wasn't anything to see for someone that wasn't all that on-board with their shtick to begin with.

This is exactly what they said that it is not.

It’s not an interactive series with a show, or a TV show with a game, but a story integrated in a way that only Telltale can do.

The Wolf Among Us was really, really good. I'm a sucker for that dirty looking, neo-noir art style.

Telltale does need to be more consistent with how they release their episodes, but they're basically helping bring old-school adventure games back from the grave.

So we're looking at essentially either a Quantum Break, Defiance, Metal Gear or Wing Commander rip off, right? They're either looking at a TV show add-on like Quantum Break or long cut-scenes like Metal Gear. Either way, I'd prefer they just be honest and say "people like our games better when they're tightly scripted and choice is a well crafted illusion with few puzzles and a strong focus on dialogue wheels, so that's what we're doing now."

Sounds super ambitious, super vague, and super unlikely to actually have anything come of it any time soon. Reminds me of the time Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams went on a stage and said "boy it sure would be cool if we were to work together".

Also this really doesn't help the impression that they seem to be spreading themselves pretty thin. The quality of their recent output hasn't even approached TWD season 1. I hope they prove me wrong, but until there's something concrete about this, I'll be fairly cynical about the whole thing.