In a surprise announcement today, The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams and Chair Entertainment co-founder Donald Mustard announced that they'll be working together on a new game called Spyjinx. Developed in partnership between Chair and Abrams' production company, Bad Robot, Spyjinx will will release in 2016 on phones, tablets, and PC. Mustard added that since the game is being made in Epic's Unreal Engine 4, it may potentially wind up on other platforms as well. Interested players can sign up for an upcoming beta over on the game's site.
In a short (promotional) interview with Geoff Keighley, Mustard and Abrams gave only a few vague hints about what sort of game Spyjinks would be, describing it as "a unique blend between an action-strategy game, mixed with really dynamic world building, with a healthy dose of RPG character development." The game's website uses pretty much exactly the same language, adding that it will take place in a "treacherous world of espionage." It's not much to go on, but I'm curious about how this thing will shake out for two key reasons.
First, Mustard explains this collaboration as a way to combine the narrative talents of Bad Robot with Chair's skill at game mechanics and systems design. And unlike many similar collaborative announcements, Chair actually has a long history of working with creatives from different media. As Infinity Blade's lore developed beyond "evocative but vague generational struggle to kill an immortal god-king," it eventually received a novel written by noted Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. Prior to that, the studio's XBLA hit Shadow Complex included story work from novelist Orson Scott Card and comic book writer Peter David. While I'm not a huge fan of either story, it does mean that the folks at Chair have a great deal of experience dealing with people outside of the games industry.
The second reason that I'm paying attention to Spyjinx is that it will be a chance for Abrams to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. In 2013, Abrams delivered the DICE keynote alongside Valve's Gabe Newell, and the two discussed the tension between player agency and the desire to tell a coherent and compelling narrative, and Abrams had some major criticisms about the way games tend to tell stories.
While Abrams spoke openly about his love for games, he also felt that game designers hadn't yet figured out how to corral players in a way to enhance storytelling. When a player can repeatedly throw a book at the face of an important NPC in the middle of a climactic scene, it really drains the moment of gravitas. Newell countered that stripping away player agency was antithetical to the form of games, and that even if goofy shit happens sometimes, we're better off by leaving players in control. So, now that Abrams will have some degree of input on a game project of his own, I'm curious to see how he handles it, especially since whatever story Spyjinx tells will need to be deliverable on a phone screen.
It's worth noting that one of the things that came out of that Abrams-Newell talk was a new mode for Team Fortress 2 designed by Bad Robot, but Spyjinx seems to be the company's first time working on a game from the ground up. (I am curious about that Team Fortress 2 mode, though. Has anyone played it?)
In any case, I'm excited to see Chair working on something new, and hopefully this won't just end up as one more addition to the ever-growing pile of failed and/or abandoned Games-meet-Hollywood collaborations.
Editor's Note: Additional clarity was provided for the writing roles on Shadow Complex.