Game of Thrones author George RR Martin's new project is a video game, Xbox has revealed.
The new game, named Elden Ring, appears to be a dark fantasy game that borrows heavily from the tone of Dark Souls. Martin will work with the creators of that series – developers FromSoftware, which has made many of the most critically acclaimed games in recent years – to help realise the game.
It will be the first time that Martin has worked on a non-Game of Thrones title.
Elden Ring was unveiled during Xbox's E3 announcement. While that reveal took the form of a long trailer filled with atmospheric shots, it showed very little about what the game might actually be like or how it will work.
FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki revealed in an interview published on the Xbox website that the game had been years in the making and still "has a load of work ahead of it as well". The game is a third-person RPG, he said, and has less of the focus on action than the studio's recent release Sekiro.
Numerous fans took the opportunity to plead with Martin to finish the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series on which the Game of Thrones TV series is based. The author has said repeatedly that he is hard at work on the remaining two books.
Martin had mentioned having worked on a game in a blog post he wrote after the finale of Game of Thrones.
"I’ve consulted on a video game out of Japan," he wrote, in addition to a long list of other projects he said he was working on that would be keeping him busy.
The collaboration with George RR Martin began with the author giving ideas on the themes and ideas of the game, and progressed into him creating an overarching mythos that helped bring a range of characters and other elements to the game, said FromSoftware head Miyazaki.
"The actual collaboration itself begun with Mr. Martin ever so politely confirming what sorts of themes, ideas as well as many game-related aspects I had envisioned for the game," he said in the interview. "This allowed us to have many free and creative conversations regarding the game, in which Mr. Martin later used as a base to write the overarching mythos for the game world itself.
"This mythos proved to be full of interesting characters and drama along with a plethora of mystical and mysterious elements as well. It was a wonderful source of stimulus for me and the development staff.
"Elden Ring’s world was constructed using this mythos and stimulus as a base. Even I myself find it hard to contain my excitement from time to time. We hope that everyone else is looking forward to the world we have created," he said.
Elden Ring will be available on Xbox One and PC, Microsoft said. While no release date was given, that suggests that it will be out before the new Xbox and the next generation of hardware arrives at the end of 2020.
The game will be published by Bandai Namco, whose website had mistakenly revealed many details of the game before the E3 announcement.
