Game of Thrones is coming. No, not the HBO show—you still have to wait till 2015 for that—but rather the highly anticipated videogame coming from Telltale Games. The first chapter of the game's six episodes is due out before the end of the year for PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and iOS.
Today, we've finally got our first look at the trailer, whose narrator sounds very much like actor Lena Headey. It also features some familiar faces: Cersei, Tyrion, Margaery Tyrell, Ramsay Bolton, and a guy getting tortured by Ramsay who may or may not be Theon.
The game will be based on the TV show, not the books, and focus on a Northern family called House Forrester towards the end of the third season and finishes at the end of the fourth season.
WIRED can also exclusively reveal an original character in the game, by the name of Maester Ortengryn.
Here's the character description provided by Telltale:
While we'll have a chance to visit familiar locales like King's Landing and the Wall, we'll also spend a fair amount time in the frozen North, especially in Ironrath, an "imposing stronghold surrounded by towering ironwood trees" that serves as the seat of House Forrester:
The Forresters have come up in the books before (though not the TV show), thanks to a passing mention in A Dance with Dragons. They're bannermen to House Glover of Deepwood Motte, and have long been loyal to the Starks, though we're told little beyond that.
Ironrath is located in the Wolfswood, a massive forest that sprawls across the northwest of the North. It's also conveniently located on the edge of the largest ironwood forest in Westeros, giving the Forresters control of a valuable resource often used build weapons and ships. (Fun fact: When Ned Stark beheaded that guy in the beginning of Game of Thrones, it was on an ironwood stump!) We're told that their good fortune has attracted the particular jealousy of their sure-to-be-evil rivals known as House Whitehill.
Indeed, the trailer involves some ominous threats from Cersei, who mentions how important the ironwood is to the Forresters and suggests that "it would be a shame to let it fall into the hands of another house. I imagine you'd do anything to prevent that from happening, wouldn't you?"
According to Telltale, unspecified events—likely relating to Cersei's threats—will put House Forrester into a "precarious position" that could spell their doom. And perhaps... send a protagonist on an exciting journey to achieve a thing?
Throughout the course of the game, you'll actually get to play as five different members of House Forrester — either blood relatives or those serving them — across both Westeros and the eastern continent of Essos. The qualification that not all playable characters are actual members of the family suggests that Maester Ortengryn may indeed be one of them, since he was merely assigned to the House by the Citadel, and not born into it.
A previous teaser for the game included a quote from Storm of Swords mentioning "squids in the Wolfswood and flayed men [riding] the Kingsroad," a reference to the Greyjoys and the Boltons in the North. The third season of the television show ends with Roose Bolton named Warden in the North, so chances are the Forresters will be asked to swear fealty to House Bolton —and the man widely known to have betrayed and killed Robb Stark, their former lord.
The Greyjoy angle is a little more uncertain, since Yara's doomed invasion to rescue Theon didn't take her anywhere near the Wolfswood (the Bolton Dreadfort is located in the East) though the Ironborn could still factor in in one way or another. Since the end of the fourth season also sees the arrival of Stannis Baratheon at the Wall, he—and dare we hope, the Battle for Castle Black?—could easily play a role in this Northern drama as well.
Much like on the show, the decisions that one character makes can have potentially far-reaching consequences, with impacts that felt even in distant cities—and by the other characters you play.
