Obsidian Turned Down Game of Thrones RPG Opportunity

As part of a longer interview with the folks at Red Bull Games, Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed that, about eight years ago, the Irvine studio turned down the opportunity to develop a Game of Thrones role-playing game. Apparently Urquhart felt that the property didn’t necessarily fit the genre, and suggested to develop an RTS with the property instead:

(I don’t know if the project would have ever happened,) says Urquhart, candidly, (but we were approached by a big publisher, and they had the Game of Thrones licence at the time. And I love Game of Thrones it’s an incredibly rich story and world and obviously the characterisation is amazing. But, there’s a couple of things about it that are challenging if you want to make a roleplaying game.

(Part of it was very interesting to us because of the focus on characters, and that’s kind of what we do. But if you think about the world, it’s so much about the politics and it’s so much about the linear story of what’s going on. Then you tie that to magic playing a very little role, and to be honest, [the story is] mostly [about] people. There’s not a lot of standard role-playing fantasy things, [like] putting an adventuring party together and going to find the abandoned ruins full of zombies and witches and ghosts and spectres and ghouls and all that kind of stuff.

(My recommendation at the time was that it would make a better RTS [real-time strategy game], or something like an RTS. Again, a geopolitical, war simulation-type game.) (Something which, incidentally, now exists: in the form of this mod for medieval RTS Crusader Kings 2).

I recommend you read the full interview for Urquhart’s thoughts on paid mods, crowdfunding, and Pillars of Eternity.