Sunday, August 23, 2009

Telltale Rumor #1: Maniac Mansion episodic series

Telltale is pretty close-lipped about their projects. They don't announce them until they are just about ready to release the first episode in the series. But that doesn't mean that they haven't given hints to what their future series might be. Lately, there seem to be quite a few mentions of possible new series at Telltale. So, I'm going to start a new feature here that looks at Telltale rumors and I'll dissect the probability of that property getting released in a completely unscientific way. :)

I'm starting this feature off with the biggie. Fans want a Day of The Tentacle sequel. After Monkey Island, it's probably the most fan-requested LucasArts property there is. And we already have Tales of Monkey Island to enjoy. So, what's the likelyhood of seeing an episodic game set in the Maniac Mansion universe?

In June 2009, after the announcement of Telltale licensing the Monkey Island series for Tales of Monkey Island, Videogamer.com interviewed Dan Connors, Telltale's CEO.

"I always think of Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island as the big three franchises," Connors continued. Seeing as two of the three are under the company's belt already, that makes DOTT the logical next step, but it's "having a 'wait and see' approach with Monkey."

As for the "wait and see" statement, things are looking good financially speaking for LucasArts to want to continue their adventure franchises. LucasArts' own Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition was #1 in sales on it's week of release on all of it's release platforms (Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, and Direct2Drive), beating out some heavy hitters in what are generally thought to be more popular genres. Telltale's CEO Dan Connors told Videogamer.com that Tales of Monkey Island is Telltale's "strongest performing franchise to date”.

It looks like the chances of this rumour coming true are very high. I personally can't wait to see the Edisons again after all these years. And, with Dave Grossman on the Telltale Team (he was the co-leader of Day of the Tentacle with Tim Schafer), the franchise couldn't be passed into better hands than Telltale.

3 comments:

Julio Von McWorthington Summers IV said...

Any hope of this? I'd love to see the Maniac Mansion remastered for XBox Live Arcade.

Jennifer McMurray said...

The possibility seemed bright in 2009, but all hope left with LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez in 2010. The new LucasArts president isn't interested in LucasArts' adventure titles, as he's only interested in making "AAA" titles (Star Wars and possibly Indiana Jones) in-house (and he's not even willing to license out the properties to other developers). :(

Julio Von McWorthington Summers IV said...

Christ.. so even if TellTale is willing to do all the work to remaster Maniac Mansion, he's not willing to pay them?
What a mess. Guess it will never happen, & here I thought we were so close.