The Game of Thrones fandom has been discussing video games quite a bit lately — and not just because of the upcoming mobile RPG Game of Thrones: Kingsroad. Recent news behind the scenes HBO’s parent company has fans hopeful that some great console games set in Westeros could be on the way. The big headline is that Warner Bros. Games president David Haddad recently announced his plans to leave the role, but there are some other interesting details here as well. The idea that this will lead to any major developments on Game of Thrones games is still only speculation at this point, but it’s interesting to see the intense demand to bring this franchise to this medium.
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Last month, Variety broke the news that Haddad is stepping down after 12 years as president of Warner Bros. Games and Warner Bros. Entertainment. He will stay on for three months to help with the transition, however, an insider said that Warner Bros. Discovery has no plans to sell off or shut down its games division. This is interesting because, right now, most streamers are outsourcing their video game development. Those that aren’t, like Netflix, are focused on mobile games and in-app games — not the kind of big console productions fans are looking for.
Can Westeros Revolutionize Another Medium?
Many reports focused on recent flops from WB Games under Haddad, and several other fandoms showed interest in this story and what it might mean for their favorite franchise. One extreme example is DC Comics, where fans hoped that this might get them back to beloved titles like the Arkham series. On the other hand, fans of Harry Potter feared what this might mean for the follow-up to Hogwarts Legacy.
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Compared to those two, fans of Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire are in a unique position because they’ve never really had a universally beloved game. For the most part, games set in Westeros have been meant for mobile apps with an emphasis on microtransactions, and even die-hard fans don’t want to beggar their realms for that. The best loved games to this point have been an action RPG by Cyanide released on Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 back in 2012, an adventure game by Telltale released back in 2014, and fan-made mods of Crusader Kings 2 and 3 that is still dominate the conversation to this day.
This means that Game of Thrones fans are not looking for a course-correction or a long-awaited sequel — they’re asking for something totally new. In a sense, this should give us a bit of déjà vu, as Game of Thrones itself was a new concept when it first premiered in 2012. George R.R. Martin wrote his novels specifically to escape the restrictions of screenwriting for TV, and yet a cable network took over the industry with one of the most ambitious book adaptations of all time. Where previous fantasy titles had gone to the big screen, Game of Thrones made studios consider a longer format to tell this doorstopper stories.
What Fans Are Saying
Fans now seem confident that this world and the stories in it would do just as well in games, and it’s a little shocking how quickly this conversation took over the fandom. Admittedly, A Song of Ice and Fire fans have become a bit desperate waiting for their next book, but there’s a brand new TV spinoff coming this year, House of the Dragon Season 3 expected next year, and a third show reportedly nearing a green light. It seems fans genuinely want to navigate Westeros with a controller — they’re not just looking for something new to talk about.
It’s notable that four weeks before Haddad’s announcement, one of the most popular YouTube creators in the ASoIaF fandom, Glidus, published a 25-minute video essay on the franchise’s history with video games. This included a lengthy discussion of what Glidus would like to see from the franchise and why those ideas might work.
Meanwhile, YouTuber The Dragon Demands posted a timely piece on Haddad’s exit and what it might mean for ASoIaF games. This included the news that WB Games will begin officially supporting fan mods to Hogwarts Legacy — the first time the company has ever done this. Considering that the most popular game in Westeros is a mod for Crusader Kings, this could be big for ASoIaF as well.
The conversation blossomed on Reddit, fan forums, and other social media platforms, indicating that there was a lot of interest here. Fans don’t seem to be unified in what they want — YouTuber Michael Talks About Stuff advocated for an open-world RPG along the lines of Skyrim, while commenters proposed strategy games, roguelikes, fighting games, and just about every other genre.
A Long Wait
WB Games has not announced any plans to bring Game of Thrones to consoles or PC at the time of this writing, and even if they begin working on something big as soon as Haddad is out the door, it will be years before we get to play it for ourselves. Still, the burst of fan interest in this story — as speculative as it is — should tell us a lot about the potential for video games of Thrones. For now, we can look forward to Game of Thrones: Kingsroad coming to iOS, Android, and Windows sometime this year, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiering on HBO and Max sometime this year.
