E3 2017: Telltale Basically Confirms It's Making A New IP And Teases Support For New Platforms

Telltale Games is best known for its games based on big-name, established franchises such as The Walking Dead, Minecraft, Borderlands, and Game of Thrones. The studio has not made an entirely new IP since Puzzle Agent, but now the company has basically confirmed it is working on something new--but fans might have to wait a while to see it.

"An original, new IP is definitely still in our future," Telltale Games head of communications Job Stauffer told GameSpot in an interview at E3 today. "It may not be as immediate as the next few things we have coming up. We haven't been able to say a lot about it in the last few years."

Stauffer gave no indication as to the genre or story for what the new IP might be. Intriguingly, however, he mentioned VR and streaming services.

"I think the landscape of what's possible in digital interactive media, particularly in the streaming environment, and quite frankly the VR space, is very exciting," he said. "And while there is nothing to announce right now, I think you can look forward [to a Telltale new IP] further on in the future. Yes, it's still something we very much have in our minds."

Also in our interview, Stauffer doubled down on how Telltale plans to bring its games to new platforms beyond console, mobile, and PC. Interestingly, he suggested Telltale might bring its catalog of games to set-top boxes and possibly even Netflix ... somehow.

"I think there is a lot of space for Telltale to move on to platforms that most people don't even really consider to be game systems," he said. "A lot of boxes of many different varieties in homes--millions and millions of homes across America, where people don't even think game-playing is possible on them, but maybe they're watching stories or consuming narrative-driven content or streaming it.

"And for us, we're looking at that. It would be unfathomable to think about playing a Grand Theft Auto [game] over Netflix. But it wouldn't be so unfathomable to think about playing a Telltale game over a streaming video service of that calibre."

Telltale's Eric Stirpe told GameSpot that when he walks around the studio, he sometimes has a peek at what the UI team--"a bunch of wizards," he called them--is working on. Stauffer cut him off as he was about to say something more about what the UI team was working on. Stauffer went on to reiterate that Telltale is eager to bring its games to new platforms, saying more details on the plans will be announced this summer.

"The Telltale experience will be expanding onto services and devices that are already on millions of homes across the world," he said. "And we'll be talking more about it this summer."

Also in our interview, Stauffer said Telltale--which has as many as 400 employees these days--is capable of working on four projects at once. We know the team is making more Game of Thrones, Minecraft, and Guardians of the Galaxy episodes. Beyond those, fans can expect to hear about "a handful of things" this summer that Stauffer believes people will be excited about.

As always, we'll report back with more details as they're announced. GameSpot's interview with Stauffer and Stripe covered a number of other topics, including Xbox One X, Nintendo Switch, more multiplayer features, and a lot more. Check back with GameSpot soon for more from our conversation with the developers.

Telltale didn't have any announcements at E3 this year, but other companies did. Click the links to see roundups for all the big Xbox, PlayStation, EA, Ubisoft, and Nintendo news.