Red Eagle Games signs distribution agreement with EA on multiplatform adaptations, MMOG based on Robert Jordan's acclaimed fantasy universe.
The final installment in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series isn't expected to hit bookstores until later this year, but Red Eagle Games isn't waiting to hear the ending before proceeding with its adaptations. Following an announcement last November that it had secured the rights to the late author's magnum opus, Red Eagle said today that it has found a distribution partner in Electronic Arts.
Through its EA Partners program, the megapublisher has agreed to distribute the Wheel of Time games, which, according to Red Eagle Games, are expected to arrive on "all major videogame platforms, including consoles, personal computers, handheld systems, and wireless devices." Red Eagle Games is also prepping a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Robert Jordan's heralded universe, which EAP will also distribute at retail.
The developer did not provide an update on when it expects the first game in the series to ship. In November, Red Eagle producer Rick Selvage told Venture Beat that each game will debut alongside a Wheel of Time theatrical release, and the studio expects "no less than three" films based on the books, hinging upon how well they perform. According to Variety, Universal Pictures will team with Red Eagle on producing the films.
Red Eagle Games joins a growing list of developers who have signed on with EAP, with such partners including Harmonix, id Software, Valve, Epic Games, Grasshopper Manufacture, and, most recently, Double Fine. The EAP program provides independent game makers with such services as QA, marketing, and distribution resources.
The final installment in the Wheel of Time series, penned by Mistborn author Brandon Sanderson, is expected to go to press in fall 2009.
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
@WootMannen Eragon BLEW. I swear, if the Eye of the World movie is even remotely near the crapiness that was the Eragon movie, I will personally fly to Hollywood and maim the heads of Red Eagle. It has to be done justice. LOTR was amazing, this can be amazing too.
Video game? Sounds interesting, the Wheel of Time world is VAST, with lots and lots of artifacts, unexplored lands and even a nicely developed system of magic. Such a game should provide plenty of fun for any dedicated RPG'er, but I worry about the possible movies. I don't think I could handle the disappointment of yet another movie adaptation turning out to be trash, like Eragon.
They could probably get the first book into 3 movies, Abosh1. Though it was really the second book that got me hooked on the series, so I'm fine if they cut a lot from the first. At any rate, the movies could very well be great stuff. The game, though, I'm not looking forward to that at all. Timing your release to match a movie translates to "screw the bugs, just get a box out there when the marketing hype for the movie is max." Making it so the game comes out for every platform from high end PCs to a cell phone translates to "get as many boxes out as possible." Eeesh. Scrawl the tooth of the Dragon on this one and move on to the next game, folks.
I am not certain I would dare to claim either Wot or the Fire and Ice series was better. They both have a similar goal of blending action and fantasy with political struggles that seem all to real. WoT is a little on the long and drawn out side and that would be the only mark I could cast against it. Even so I eagerly await the final book.
I'm curious to see how they handle Weaving the Power in this game.... And Good God I hope they don't screw this up. Nerds everywhere would go nuts.
Still hard to believe Robert Jordan is dead! He never got to see the reaction of releasing the final book, nor any movie adaptations and such.
The Wheel of Time series was brilliant... It will be interesting to see what they can do with it in a game, though I dont think they would be able to stuff it into only three movies
George RR Martins song of ice and fire series is great, really looking forward to the next one but I would cut my b*lls off for the next wheel of time book
12 books in 3 movies? Oh yeah, this going to end well, or maybe it will, it's been a while since I have read the books but from what I remember a lot of the length of them came from drawn out scene descriptions that could easily be adapted, in a shorter amount of time to film, or just completely axed.
I haven't read it so I was wondering which series is better' this or A Song of Ice and Fire? While were at i,t could someone tell me if the Malazan book of the Fallen is a good series? thanks
as a major jordan fan I think I may have to give these a miss and just stay true to the books, can't believe they would cram 12 books into 3 movies even Peter Jackson would turn that down and he is the only director that I would trust with the series. The books are by far the best I have ever read and I have read a hell of a lot of books. to sum up Shame on you EA and Red Eagle Games poor guy has suffered enought with out having to look on at this coin in, he has enought on his hands with Brandon Sanderson mucking around in his finest works as it is.
omg... This is going to be the biggest stuff up ever. The whole Wheel of time books into 3 movies??? and games that appear on every possible gaming platform... Yeah we know how these turn out awesome everytime. I am hoping against hope that both movies and games will do it justice but i seriously doubt it. Games will be mediocre and movies will miss majority of the plot lines and events...
If you have not started this series- please don't. This is truly one of the worst efforts in Fantasy Lit in a long time. The first 2 books were promising...but this is just horrific. The characters are dead- if you can keep track of them, but then who cares? The storyline is silly, the descriptions are repetitive in the extreme, and well it is just bad. It is too bad so many have invested themselves in this drivel. Mat, Perrin, Lan and Loial were worth reading for at one point....but now it is just too much crap to wade thru to get to anything even remotely good. Save your $$. Gamble, drink, do something wothwhile with your $$- DONT BUY ANY OF THESE "BOOKS". Super @#$%
This series became a bloated, decaying corpse swarming with maggots already a dozen of years ago.
I thought Wheel of Time was an okay Fantasy book series, not the greatest, but not bad, but I just can't picture this being in any shape or form a good MMO. Enough of the craptacular MMO's already. Companies keep slavering over Blizzard's profits with WoW and latch on to the MMO genre without any real thought about how they can make an original and innovative MMO. Instead, they typically churn out sub-par WoW clones, that die an agonizing death. At least Darkfall Online looks to be something quite different from what's available. That's really the only new MMO coming that has my interest, other than of course whatever else Blizzard is going to make.
And it timed to be released with a movie. Like we didn't ree that coming. Can't picture it coming close to the LOTR series. Although, I would have liked to see a Sword of Truth (Terry Goodkind) movie / series / game (but not the crap-tacular Legend of the Seeker that's on TV now, what a dissapointment). At least it will probably be better than the Sword of Shanarra (LOTR rip-off, almost exact same story, at least in the beginning).
I remember the old PC Wheel of Time game being pretty good when it came out back in 1999 (I think it was the first game to use the original Unreal engine, not counting Unreal of course). Maybe these games will be pretty good. They can't be any worse than the books (sorry, but I only mildly liked 1-2, 3-6 were pretty bad, got worse with each one, and I didn't dare keep reading).
"Developers should just give up with the MMOs already. As much as I hate to admit it, WOW is an unstoppable juggernaut. No one is going to destroy it." Not true, Blizzard said they'll develop the first true WOW killer. Maybe World of Starcraft/Diablo? Or perhaps a Vikings MMO lol.
Something tells me that BlueScar won't be raring for either this or the movie. Each to their own.
I'm a huge fan of the series but I have to admit that books 8, 9 and 10 were *very* weak, especially compared to books 1-7. I introduced my brother to the WotS and used to joke around about "hoping the series ends before the writer dies" *sigh*..... Lets hope the new author can do the last book justice.. There was a FPS WoT game released ages ago (10 years maybe?) and it was okay... I also don't think this series will translate very well into movies or videogames. EA being involved doesn't make me more confident either..
Intro movie will be 5 hours long and tell you nothing other than describe the particular inn that you happen to start out your career in.
You hate Robert Jordan, then embrace George R.R. Martin? Martin doesn't feel any more mature, it just has more "m-rated content," so to speak. Which doesn't make it any more mature. Honestly those books could get just as tedious as Jordan, too. He would switch to an unimportant side character and drone on about nothing for a whole chapter.
Maybe if they make a game out of a bad book it will be good, instead of the crap games we get from blockbuster movies
BlueScar is just a repressed child with no imagination that he had to mention someone who writes books about deviants. Seriously, Songs of Ice and Fire are immature.
No imagination. No action. No depth. Poorly chosen conflicts. Narcoleptic sub-plots of evil minor characters
I would have to agree with bluescar except for the trash part. Jordan is the master of using a lot of text to say nothing. The early books were good but around book six i found myself skipping paragraphs to get back to where the characters actually have dialog. The songs of fire and ice by George R.R. Martin is much better written and is more adult it also doesn't have that teen girls rule the world vibe. HBO is making a series on the Songs of Fire ans Ice and I can't wait for that.
No, don't read it. Everybody that raves about this series clearly has never read anything good in the genre of fantasy. These books are garbage, boring as moldy bread, nothing that can't be said in 2 minutes happens for like 6 books of the series, and if you didn't know better you might think they were written by a Bull-moose lez foaming man-hater! "Detail" HA! Detail about nothing that says nothing over and over and over again for books and books, that is except mountains of text about how all men are stupid and that there is NOTHING more scary and powerful than a 95 lbs. girl that *Glares* at you! Oh Noes, the sheer power, all are undone by this mightiest of forces of the universe, the bitter controlling little girl! To everyone that thinks I'm joking or over stating it, go ahead read this trash and see for your self. And when your done, leave the kiddy table and come back to the adult side of the room and start reading stuff that doesn't suck. I would suggest reading George R.R. Martin's Songs of Ice and Fire books it you want something over a 9 year old's logic level.
EA is involved. Film adaptations. Universal Platfrom launches. Unknown game studio. Odds of any of these games being worth the $$$ = Negative features.
Old news. I think neither films nor games will be able to do this series justice. They're just too detailed to translate well. An MMO could work if it was set outside the story arc of the series (say, in a prior Age or something). I also would enjoy a FPS RPG similar to the old Unreal based WoT game - that was awesome. But has anybody ever heard of Red Eagle Games before? I can't seem to find any of their titles, so my hopes aren't exactly high. I hope this series doesn't get butchered.
Movie tie ins, and universal platform releases... The deck is seriously stacked against these games even being playable, much less enjoyable.
Robert Jordan only had parts of book 12 on paper and most was incomplete. The new writer said in a interview that some parts he had a paragraph that needed to be 20 pages. Also i think that a MMO could be done right because it is such an in depth and developed world.
@FelixTheGreat15 ...heheh, did you copy and paste part of my comment from about half a page down? rhetorical question of course...though I don't know if I should be annoyed or honored...I imagine this is kinda how Tolkien would've felt upon reading the Sword of Shannara...
I'll keep my eye on this because there is potential for some great gaming experiences. At least the benefit of making a game as opposed to a movie is that you have the time to flesh out the story and characters without cutting what makes the story so good in the first place.
i love this series and think its amazing. its just with all the detail required in those books if any of it is skipped than it will be butchered. so i'm scared it might fall flat on its face. and dang i am excited for the end of this stinking long series
Some other people are trying to cash in on the success of the LOTR series. I wish them the best of luck, I've read the first 5 books which were very good so please don't disappoint!!!
i liked the first six books in the series but after that it just started to drag on and on as if jordan had no idea what to do with the story except milk it for more money. somehow i don't think this is gonna do well, seeing that the popularity of this series has gone way down.
I have read the first 10 books of WoT, time to read #11, a GREAT series! BTW, a fantasy computer RPG (with both single player/multiplayer) of Wheel of Time came out in 1998 by Infogames for the PC. Forget the Asha'man, I want to be one of the Forsaken!!
Red Eagle Entertainment signs on Fallout: New Vegas studio to lend development aid on Xbox 360, PS3, PC edition of fantasy RPG based on Robert Jordan novels.
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