TellTale's Fables game will have a different title
TellTale's next project is based on the comic Fables. But for some reason, that's not what it's going to be called.
“We won’t be using the name Fables. We’re based on the property, but we’ll have a new name. We haven’t announced it yet," Telltale CEO Dan Connors told IGN.
"We’re still hammering it out. We want to make sure that people know it’s associated with the DC comic and Bill’s work and everything else. It’s delicate. But it won’t be called Fables."
Elsewhere in the interview, Connors remarked that it's unfortunate Telltale's series may be confused with Activision's shooter, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, because of the similarity in the titles, but gave no explanation for why "the game associated with the comic Fables" will have a different title. He did hint that TellTale's learned from experience, though.
"Walking Dead has had a huge impact on the company as far as how we look at things and how we do what we do. We’re taking a lot of what we learned from that and making sure that Fables can execute on the same things. That’s taking longer," he said.
"But we’re definitely in full production on it. We’re working hard. It’s coming together really well. We’ll probably have more to talk about on it pretty soon, with a name and everything else, in the near future.”
Connors said he's not sure whether the success of Telltale's style is indicative of a resurgence of interest in adventure gaming, as enjoying The Walking Dead doesn't necessarily translate to the classic puzzle solving formula of the genre. But he is adamant - quite correctly, according to sales and critical reception - that TellTale's approach works.
"In my mind, this is what we’ve been working toward for a long time. While the scope of the success is bigger than anything we expected, we’ve just been doing what we set out to do the entire time. We’ve never strayed from who we are. We’ve pushed and worked our asses off to do this," he said.
"Now it’s a really good template. All that work paid off. When executed well, with the right franchise, with the right gameplay mechanics, with a great story, with great writing, this is what it can be. It’s really powerful and really compelling.”
Fables is an ongoing Vertigo series by Bill Willingham, which has characters from fairytales and folklore living alongside humans in New York. TellTale announced its adaptation at the same time as The Walking Dead and King's Quest games, but has issued no updates since early 2012.