EA signs Wheel of Time games

By Oli Welsh Published 16 January, 2009

Big backing for the book-based fantasies.

EA Partners has signed on to distribute the Wheel of Time games based on the popular Robert Jordan fantasy novels.

Last year it emerged that Red Eagle Entertainment would be adapting Jordan's universe into a series of films and games, including an MMO.

EA Partners, which works with the likes of Valve, id and MTV/Harmonix, will distribute the MMO alongside a line of standalone games on all major platforms - helping them get "a blockbuster launch on the global stage", according to EA's David DeMartini.

Red Eagle is setting up its own game production facility to make the games in-house. It's an ambitious project for a newcomer to game development, but EA clearly has faith. Do you?

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Bigglesworth #1 3 years ago

    Great news that this series is getting some exposure beyond the novels.

    Hopefully Red Eagle will understand that you can't make a game these days with a bunch of fresh-faced graduates, and hire some industry experience.

  • Doctor_What #2 3 years ago

    They're tedious and rambling plots with very little sense of purpose, even more so than Tolkien. I'm not confident about them doing a mainstream LotR smash-hit like Tolk's films/games.

  • Headache #3 3 years ago

    "EA clearly has faith. Do you?"
    No. If it's anything like the books the first half of the game will be derivative but fun before losing focus in the second half and sinking into a pit of tedious drudgery.

  • rare_uk #4 3 years ago

    So true, most boring book series ever

  • hbunny #5 3 years ago

    I'm with Headache on this one - I enjoyed them up to book 5 (or 6?) but the later ones were so slow and my head exploded from all the new, minor, characters I needed to remember from book to book.

  • anomagnus #6 3 years ago

    i dont know what to say, loved books up to 6 or 7, but then it just became rambling rubbish

    book 10 i think was the worst, i just skimmed through, read the bits with rand in it, and the closed it.

    no disrespect to the dead, but he needed better editorial control

    this game will not be a success

  • Bigglesworth #7 3 years ago

    Charges of rambling plot and appalling book 10 can't be denied. Still an excellent fantasy series though, and Knife of Dreams was a return to form that bodes well for the finale.

  • dacicus #8 3 years ago

    Published by EA...We know by now what that means(just check the autumn and winter line-up).
    Add to that, the fact that the books are going south after volume 5. Most likely, the games will be based very loosely on the books(like the LOTR games developped and published by EA).
    Bottom line: no, I don't have any faith in anything that goes with EA (yes, I'm a bitter former customer).

  • Mawich #9 3 years ago

    Bigglesworth: Knife of Dreams boded well for the finale until he died... let's hope the new author (whose name temporarily escapes me) hired to complete the book does a good job.

    Although he did say he'd make sure it includes enough information for us to finally figure out who killed Asmodean, something RJ always claimed was obvious and could never understand why we didn't figure it out the moment it happened.

    Anyway, it could be a good game setting, but it could also be utterly rubbish. Past experience suggests the latter is more likely... it might be difficult to deal with player characters who can channel. The One Power is very freeform, and I'm not sure how well it'd model as a series of specified abilities.

  • Bigglesworth #10 3 years ago

    @Mawich

    Yeah Jordan's death has kinda put a crimp in book 12, still, new guy Brandon Sanderson seems promising. Must admit I haven't read his books yet though.

    I don't think the magic system should cause a problem per se, yes its freeform, but so are most such systems. Star Wars games have implemented the Force in limited but sucessful ways; I don't recall much griping about the rendition of Harry Potter's pullsomethingoutofyourarsicus manner of magic, etc, etc. Actually Channeling is much more defined in its source material than many other systems, which may or may not be a good thing. It just depends how it gets implemented.

  • mumtoucher #11 3 years ago

    I'm a huge fan of the series, an MMO could be interesting, but lets be honest its gonna be crap, so i suggest a 10 player online streets of rage style game, where you fight hordes of shadowspawn featuring Lan, Rand, Mat, Perrin and all the other badasses etc etc

  • schachmatt #12 3 years ago

    No comment on the FPS-style Wheel of Time game from a few years back?

  • TriggerHippie #13 3 years ago

    The Warlock of Firetop mountain had more direction than this rambling bastard of a series. I guess it might be almost bearable now that the books are in print, but waiting for book 6 to come out I just gave up and moved on.

  • Incarta #14 3 years ago

    Am I the only person who keeps reading the headline as "EA signs Wheel of Fortune games"?

  • BlackKraken #15 3 years ago

    how about an mmo where u go back in time and destroy ultima online and everquest so mmos never happened?

  • actionfitz #16 3 years ago

    please please please please dont be shit.
    :/