Telltale Games has provided endless hours of entertainment with its unique style of video games following popular comic book, television and video game properties. The company really broke into the public consciousness with its episodic game based on The Walking Dead in 2012. With series based on Game of Thrones, Fables and Batman under their belt, what other properties could the developer work on to produce some fun content?
I finally picked up Batman: The Telltale Series last week during a Playstation Store sale, after I had included the game in my video game wish list earlier this year. The fifth and final episode in the game was released last week, and I’m looking forward to delving into the rest of this version of Gotham.
With a third installment of The Walking Dead just released today and a Guardians of the Galaxy game set for 2017, I can’t help but think of other properties that could be fun if given the Telltale treatment. Here are a few:
Veronica Mars
The popular teen detective show that catapulted Kristen Bell to popularity in the early 2000s lasted three seasons and eventually spawned a movie to show where the characters ended up years later. But there are probably a lot more stories to tell in Neptune, and an episodic game based on the series could explore some of those lost years.
Gathering Veronica’s supporting cast to solve another case plaguing Neptune would probably not have the same level of action as other Telltale games, but putting a focus on the detective work and the paths Veronica chooses could make for a fun series of episodes. At the very least, it would give a still-rabid fanbase another outlet for a new story involving Veronica, Wallace, Mac, Logan and Det. Keith Mars.
Sin City
If ever there was a property that calls out for a video game, it’s Frank Miller’s Sin City. The 2005 movie was a great adaptation, using comic book pages as a storyboard, but the recent sequel wasn’t anywhere near as well received. Whether it’s an original story or an adaptation of something Miller’s already published, a Sin City game would guarantee sex, drugs and violence is what would probably be the most artistically-styled game Telltale has ever produced.
In fact, I’ll admit it, even though I think you could a fun, engaging game out of the comic book characters, I want a Sin City game just for what I expect would be the amazing visuals of a typical Telltale game adapted to meet Frank Miller’s drawing style.
The source material is certainly ripe for the picking.
Angel
This might be the perfect combination of cult television favorite, fantastic creatures, detective work and fighting that made The Walking Dead a popular Telltale game. Originally appearing as a supporting character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel was spun off after Buffy’s third season into its own show, sending the vampire with a soul out to Los Angeles to find his own place in the world.
While Buffy managed a couple of video games a few generations ago – unto each generation a Slayer video game is definitely not born anymore – Angel has only managed to be a supporting player in a Buffy game and never got his own digitized story. Angel, I think, is the property more suited to a Telltale game.
With Angel’s years-long battle with evil law firm Wolfram & Hart, you have a lot of material to draw from. And the gameplay aspects of having every choice you make effect something later on would be well-served for a vampire always worried about losing control and turning evil.
An Angel game would already have an extensive supporting cast based on characters from the TV show and the Dark Horse comic book series, plus potentially cameos from Buffy as well, to expand the scope of the game.
John Constantine: Hellblazer
When Telltale Games announced an episodic series based on the Vertigo comic book Fables, I was intrigued by the possibilities. I would hope that the Fables game, A Wolf Among Us, would open up opportunities for other Vertigo properties. And who better than the resident mage and anti-hero, John Constantine.
Constantine has traveled the world, and he’s traveled between realms, earning the ire of everyone, including the Devil himself, angels and pretty much everyone he comes into contact with. A larger-than-life adventure taking John from London to the United States and to hell and back could offer players a game with the largest scope ever as John tries to save the world, or at least save his own little corner of the world.
Most Telltale games include an aspect where the people you interact with remember the decisions you make and the things you say to them, and it affects how they treat you later in the game. For Constatine, the gag would be that regardless of what you do or say, no one trusts you and, more importantly, nobody likes you.
Get Matt Ryan, who played Constantine in the short-lived NBC TV show, to voice the character in the game and you have a pretty good starting point.
The CW Arrow-verse
So many possibilities here, whether you decide to go with Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash or Legends of Tomorrow. Or, just maybe, you go with a giant crossover, much like the recent Invasion story that included characters from all four shows. Whichever route you choose for a potential game here, there’s always the option for another game somewhere down the line.
Ideally, the focus of the game would be on Ollie Queen, The Green Arrow, with the other heroes in the Arrow-verse being called in for their expertise to help Ollie get through any given scenario. Since the CW’s Arrow is usually a stand-in for Batman, pretty much everything that made the Batman Telltale game work would also work for Ollie. Plus, the added benefit of seeing The Atom, Firestorm, The Flash, Supergirl, Speedy and Black Canary done in the Telltale style would make for amazing visuals.
I certainly hope Telltale makes more Batman games in the future, but I would love for the developer to expand its scope to include more DC Comics characters.