TT's King's Quest: R.I.P. (aka Really Improbable Project)

[Bloody Eugene]

I've heard that they have problems with the Activision's rights. Any TT official news or reference about the game (aside this forum thread) was deleted. They had a placeholder website similar to the Fable one, and it's not available anymore.
The last statement about it was "The genre doesn't need us anymore".
No official comments on the forum aside Mods, the last one being one year old.

So.....
Telltale's King's Quest R.I.P.?

[Scnew]

I guess we'll see.

I'm just waiting for Roberta Williams to come out of the woodwork like every other Sierra person did to make a new game via Kickstarter.

[Jennifer]

I wouldn't worry too much. You're looking too hard into it. The comment you're talking about was said in jest (note the [laughs] after it). He was just commenting that because they have so many adventure veterans making adventure games again, Telltale is no longer the flag waver for the revival of adventure games. That's all the comment was meant to convey.

Also, the placeholder site didn't disappear, they never had a WIP site. I've been looking for http://www.telltalegames.com/kingsquest and http://www.telltalegames.com/kq since the game was announced and nothing was ever put up there.

As for being silent, Telltale just doesn't talk about stuff until they are just about to release the game. Look at Fables, it's coming out soon, and all that Telltale said about it lately is a tweet that said they're making a Fables game and nothing else. And other than that, they didn't say anything at all about Fables since the announcement, just like they haven't said anything about King's Quest. Once Fables wraps up, we'll start to hear about King's Quest.

[RAnthonyMahan]

I don't know where you heard that there were legal issues with Activision, but there's no way Telltale would've announced a game if they hadn't secured a license yet.

As for why we haven't heard anything...Telltale's just really bad when it comes to giving information on upcoming projects. I wouldn't count on hearing anything until Fables finishes.

[JuntMonkey]

Jane Jensen's "Mystery Game X" could well be King's Quest. She co-developed KQ6. Mystery Game X is supposed to be a "dark mystery game", but that type of story could be done in the KQ universe. A King Graham noir.

[Lambonius]

Telltale's King's Quest is dead in the water. Or I'll eat my hat.

And thank GOD, too.

[BagginsKQ]

Well could be, but if it does come out, you need to put your hat eating on youtube. I'd recommend a Nacho Hat, its at least easier on the bowels...

[tomimt]

It's interesting idea, that Jensesn MGX might be King's Quest. She did say that the game will be episodic, so it just could work.

[tomimt]

I just read from Jane's forum, that she's not working with Telltale, so MGX won't be King's Quest.

[MusicallyInspired]

Wrong thread.

[Darth Marsden]

Not really. Admittedly the topic has been discussed in another thread, but the conversation here seemed to veer in the same direction rather naturally. Besides, that variation seems to have been terminated thanks to updated information from the source itself, so perhaps we should just let the matter rest.

(Oo, hark at me and my fancy words.)

[Gibbeynator]

Over a year ago, people were complaining that Telltale had the audacity to even think they could touch King's Quest. Today, people are complaining that Telltale have ignored King's Quest.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Gibbeynator

Over a year ago, people were complaining that Telltale had the audacity to even think they could touch King's Quest. Today, people are complaining that Telltale have ignored King's Quest.

Nope, I am celebrating the fact that they won't be touching King's Quest.

[corruptbiggins]

Originally Posted by Lambonius

Nope, I am celebrating the fact that they won't be touching King's Quest.

Well duh!

I really want you to be so wrong now. Bet you go hide if you are though.

[Speedball]

I have been dreaming of a new King's Quest since 1998. That is 12 years, people! I really hope Telltale has not abandoned the project. The announcement that King's Quest would be coming back made me happier than any other gaming news I had received in close to 30 years of gaming. If for some reason it has fallen through however, I hope the recent Kickstarter adventure revival has been strong enough to inspire Jane Jensen or Roberta Williams or... someone.... to step in and save it. I just hope it's an entity with enough resources (money, talent, creativity and passion for the series) to do it justice.

[JuntMonkey]

It's actually 14 years.

[Irishmile]

TTG has always been tight lipped about their games... It was really out of character when they announced a list of games they would be working on.

We are not even through that list and they already added to it with law and order and a second walking dead series... We see a lot of newer forumites in a panic about the status of games.. I'm sort of surprised to see some long timers doing it here... I'm not claiming any insider knowledge but this is not out of the ordinary for ttg to not talk about their games until about a month before release.. Remember Monkey Island? They must have been sitting at that for a long time, they announced it and a month later we were playing the first ep.. This time they for whatever reason decided to let everyone know "hey there is a kq game coming"

I see no reason to assume its still not coming... Unless we hear otherwise from someone at ttg.. Or Activision.

[MusicallyInspired]

You'll see.

[BagginsKQ]

I've noticed Infamous Adventures has been pretty tightlipped about Kingdom of Sorrow too... They recently cancelled production on King's Quest III Gold Edition over legal and monetary reasons...

Infact when they made the announcement they stated;

The world, though, has changed so much now that we don't really need to keep these franchises alive anymore. All the old series are available once again for sale through various websites such as Good Old Games, and other professional outfits are making games again. And with the advent of technology such as tablets, and online console stores, these franchises are worth something again... The King's Quest rights have been licensed out for new games...

The other harsher truth is that we have flown under the radar for a long time, in a legal gray area with these fan remakes. Even though they are entirely not-for-profit, and are 100% original works (we didn't use anything from the original games in our remakes) the games themselves are copyrighted. We have only ever treated these games with respect and didn't do anything to degrade the value of the titles. But bottom line, if the owners of the copyrights wanted to, they are within their rights to issue cease and desist notices. With these franchises actually profitable (and the titles for sale again) it's not worth our effort to continue to make these without monetary return.

The fact is that problem is, that not only would "legal issues" potentially affect a KQ remake, it would be more likely to affect a brand new 'original' (ok semi-original) game in the series by a fan development team. Certainly, they aren't going to get 'monetary' return on Kingdom of Sorrow either from a fan development standpoint. If the same standards are applied to Kingdom of Sorrow, my guess its possibly cancelled as well. They certainly haven't given any updates on the game since like 2011.

Only other possiblity I could see is somehow IA is making some kind of deal with Activision to license King's Quest, and sell Kingdom of Sorrow for profit. But I think that outcome is probably very unlikely.

We do know apparently, that most of the teams at Infamous Adventures are switching over to develop Quest for Infamy which will be an original IP and sold for profit.

[Chyron8472]

It still baffles me how these teams who once made fan-games at a snails pace, then blaming it on ensuring quality and low personal priority, are taking forever on their retail games.

Time is money. The more time they waste before releasing a game, the less money they get. Certainly, quality control and attention to detail are important, but taking years to complete a for-profit project which honestly should take months makes no sense to me when there is money to be made on the finished product.