Last month Futurlab, the team famous for retro shooters and VR games, announced that they are creating a title based on the BBC television series Peaky Blinders. The game will be a “narrative action game” featuring locations from the show.
A little bit of a curve ball to be sure, Peaky Blinders isn’t something you would watch and think “I really need to play this on my Xbox”. At least that’s how normal people think, but not the games industry which has decided Peaky Blinders is absolutely ripe for video game adaption as there’s a second game on the way and this time it’s in VR.
Developers Maze Theory have snagged some money from the government to create a a “fully immersive” title based on the series. It will use AI to allow the characters from the game to “respond according to the players’ gestures, movement, voice, sound and body language”.
“This is Maze Theory’s first AI enhanced immersive drama and we are incredibly excited about the unrivalled and entirely new experience this gives players,” saidRussell Harding, executive producer at Maze Theory. “They will literally be part of Peaky Blinders’ world and be able to interact with characters in ways no one can predict. Fans of the cult show have been calling out for this type of experience and we’re honoured to be giving it to them. This is future of entertainment!”
“I’m really excited by the prospect of Peaky Blinders entering new territory,” adds Show creator Steven Knight as he counted a pile of cash from video games licenses. “People who love the show will love the opportunity to immerse themselves in the world in such a total way.”
Maze Theory were set up in 2018 and are headed by Geoff Heath OBE, former Activision European MD, and Mark Hardy, former marketing director at PlayStation where he oversaw the launch of the PlayStation 3.
Peaky Blinders VR will launch on all VR formats sometime during 2020. Futurlab’s Peaky Blinders game is set to launch in Q4 the same year.
Source: Press release
Old School
Hopefully it’s better than the series.
MrYd
How can anyone say anything bad about a series with such a ridiculous performance from Tom Hardy in? And so much great music. Not only did it give us more Nick Cave music on TV than ever before (except for that time he wrote the soundtrack to an entire TV series), but also more PJ Harvey than ever before. And even PJ Harvey covering the Nick Cave song used as the theme tune.
And Helen McCrory, who really needs to be in a lot more things than she’s been in.
And that’s before I even get started on “rude thoughts about Cillian Murphy”.
Old School
I didn’t say it was awful, Tom Hardy is great, as always. The acting all around is great. It’s just…. Meh.
It’s not that good, it bores me. Its pretty much beat for beat Sons of Anarchy. You love it I take it? That’s great, I’m happy for you. I don’t.
MrYd
And Sons of Anarchy was pretty much Hamlet, wasn’t it?
I think we might have just found a potential problem with 2 games based on it though. The series is probably only any good because of the great acting and the soundtrack. The rest of it is just perfectly adequate, not bad, not great.
The games are probably going to end up lacking the actors. Maybe 1 or 2 of the less important ones might appear? Could it end up being that thing where you play a completely new character, and a couple of minor characters from the series pop up every now and then to say a couple of lines?
And it’ll be lacking the music. I can’t quite see Nick Cave letting his music be used for a game. Peaky Blinders starting out without Red Right Hand playing? That’d just be wrong. Or like one of those few episodes where it didn’t. Or someone else sang it.
So, erm, wouldn’t say I love it. Just enjoy it quite a bit. And the games will probably end up being a bit rubbish.
Tuffcub
Futurlab’s game says it uses “Locations” but no mention of any actors from the series. The VR game will have some of the actors.
MrYd
The website for the VR game developers has the words “NEW & WELL KNOWN CHARACTERS”, under a picture of Helen McCrory as Polly.
Maybe her and 1 or 2 other minor characters, plus a whole new bunch voiced by cheaper actors?