Variety
reports that iwot Studios is developing a new AAA open-world role-playing video game set in the world of
The Wheel of Time
, the epic fantasy book series by Robert Jordan.
The Wheel of Time
TV show just
wrapped up its excellent third season
on Prime Video. We
still don’t know
if the show will be renewed, but at least this is some good news to hold fans over while we wait…right?
We’ll get into the caveats in a second. For now, iwot Studios CEO Rick Selvage promises that the game will “be everything with the ‘Wheel of Time.’ Everything that is covered in the books, as well as all the backstory elements of it. As we build out the world, it’ll be the entire ‘Wheel of Time’ world, it’s not going to be limited to one area or another or a particular age.” The whole thing will be made in house at the newly launched iwot Games; the game is expected to take three years to develop and will eventually launch on PC and consoles.
Okay, let’s dig into those caveats. If you’re a long-time
Wheel of Time
fan, you may hear the name “iwot Studios” and see a bright red flag waving in front of your face. Iwot, formly known as Red Eagle Entertainment, acquired the film, TV, video game and comic rights to
The Wheel of Time
series in 2004, a few years before author Robert Jordan died. Their relationship was fraught, with Jordan
penning a blog post
about how “displeased” he was with how Red Eagle was handling the franchise just a few weeks before his death. In 2015, Red Eagle made
a low-rent
Wheel of Time
TV pilot
that ran in the dead of night on FXX mere days before their rights in the property were set to elapse; Harriet McDougal, Robert’s Jordan’s widow,
said
she was “dumbfounded” by the move. More recently, iwot has said it’s working on a
”
Wheel of Time
AI”
…but it’s unclear exactly what that means.
Iwot is also working on a number of
Wheel of Time
prequel movies set thousands of years before the events of the main story. Rafe Judkins — the showrunner behind the Prime Video series — has
emphasized
that these movies have nothing to do with the TV show. It’s the same for this video game; it’s being made by a completely different organization than is working on the TV show.
As cool as an open-world
Wheel of Time
video game would be, considering iwot’s track record, I’ll need more than just the promise of something on the way to get excited. Personally, I’d much sooner hear about Amazon and Sony renewing the TV show for another season (or five), since that’s
The Wheel of Time
project that’s proven it’s worth something.
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This article was originally published on .net as
An open-world Wheel of Time video game is coming (but there’s reason for caution)
.
