An open-world RPG based onThe Wheel of Timeis now being developed, and as a big fan of the series, I’m struggling to wrap my head around the promises made so far. Developing a modern video game based onThe Wheel of Timemakes a lot of sense, despite the challenges involved.The Lord of the RingsandA Song of Ice & Firehave been recently busy in that field, andThe Wheel of Timeis one of the most popular fantasy series that hasn’t received the same interactive attention.
I’ve read plenty of fantasy novels, including all three aforementioned ones, butThe Wheel of Timeis truly a unique undertaking. No matter how you slice it,it’s one of the longest stories ever published, with well over four million words spread across 14 volumes of a continuous narrative. That journey has its ups and downs, but the withdrawal I experienced upon finishing it is hard to overstate, and a video game could be the perfect solution for anyone struggling to step away from Rand’s story.
The Wheel Of Time RPG Is Promising A Lot
A Huge World With Complex Lore
As revealed byVariety,theWheel of TimeRPG is being developed by a new gaming division of iwot Studios, the production company behind the Amazon series and other upcoming projects. While it doesn’t sound like development has gotten properly underway just yet, a “three-year-development process” is projected. According to CEO Rick Selvage, the planned result is an open-world game that encompasses “[e]verything that is covered in the books, as well as all the backstory elements of it.”
“It’s an open-world game, and it’ll 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. Of course, we’ll have opportunity on films, since we’re doing ‘Age of Legends,’ we’ll have a lot of assets from that and marketing opportunities and fan integration and a lot of other things. But it will cover the entire world.”- Rick Selvage
Althoughthis wouldn’t be the first video game based onThe Wheel of Time, the 1999 title that first bore the name was a much more straightforward affair. Rather than focusing on the plot of the books, it took a first-person shooter approach and mixed in some RPG elements. It does tell a story of its own, but it’s smaller in scale and only loosely connected.
Selvage’s statement doesn’t make the dividing line between the game’s scope and the overall plans for the franchise entirely clear, butit does seem to promise a comprehensive approach to the story and world. While that sounds exciting, I’m also having trouble wrapping my head around how it could even work. Even setting aside the word count, the complexity of what the game would need to cover is an exceptionally tall order.
The Wheel Of Time’s World Beats Any Elder Scrolls Game
It’s Not Just One Nation
The Elder Scrollsgames are arguably the standard-bearers for open-world fantasy RPGs, and one consistent element of the games is the focus on individual regions. While they all take place in theworld of Tamriel,each game narrows things down to one area, whether it’s the titular Morrowind and Skyrim orOblivion’s Cyrodiil. Other games likeAvowedandElden Ringhave more distinct regions, but you’re usually looking at no more than a few significantly distinct cultures.
The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfallis the largest game in the series, but its map relies on procedural generation and features relatively minimal variety.
The Wheel of Time, on the other hand, is all about hopping between vastly differing societies. While some facets of the world would be relatively easy to include, like the comparatively barren desert inhabited by the Aiel,there’s still an unusual amount of ground to cover. Building a game on this scale isn’t impossible, but working with an IP that hasn’t been well-established in the gaming sphere doesn’t seem like it would help.
The easiest precedents to point to are MMOs, which have sometimes achieved feats on this level through the steady stream of updates over time. Chris Alexander, who’s leading the development of theWheel of TimeRPG, previously worked onThe Lord of the Rings Online, which has done an impressive jobbuilding up Middle-Earthover time. Likewise,The Elder ScrollsOnlinehas covered much more of Tamriel than any individual game has.
There’s no indication that theWheel of TimeRPG will be an MMO, however, making these examples harder to apply. While some regions could be saved for expansions or even sequels (although the latter wouldn’t fit particularly well with Selvage’s description),that scale of ongoing development of a single-player title would only be feasible if the game was a huge success.
Telling The Wheel Of Time’s Story Is Just As Tough
So Many Moving Parts
Narratively, I also don’t see any way that the game could cover everything from the books, and I have to assume that’s being used to refer to all major plot points or central characters rather than a truly comprehensive approach. Considering how severely a few of the books get bogged down in repetitive side plots,I wouldn’t particularly want every piece of the story to show up. Even a more limited approach will be a tough challenge, assuming it is indeed following the central plot of the series.
At any rate, I hope the game learns from the mistakes of the Amazon show. I’ve only watched the first season to completion, but it scrapped much of the first book’s plot in favor of average TV drama before skipping to the book’s climax in a frustratingly disconnected way. I imagine the game will have to take an axe to some plot points, which is fine, andI’d be completely open to a different story in the same world. If it’s trying to tell Rand’s tale, however, I don’t want it to waste its time on newly-concocted filler.
There’s no point in being too pessimistic when the game’s development is just getting started, so I may as well try to believe in a huge,compelling RPG experiencethat delivers allThe Wheel of Time’s best points in game form. A few years down the line, though, I’ll be interested to see just how well the product being delivered matches up with those promises. An open-world RPG based onThe Wheel of Timecould be absolutely incredible, but it could just as easily fall short of those lofty expectations.
The Wheel of Time
Cast
The Wheel of Time follows Moiraine, a member of the powerful all-female organization Aes Sedai, as she leads a perilous quest with five young individuals. Moiraine suspects one among them could be the prophesized reincarnation of a mighty figure destined to either save or doom humanity.
