Telltale Ends Its Quest For A King's Quest Revival

I'll admit, I'm rather bemused by the desire for more King's Quest. It seems that everyone else has far more affection for the series than I ever mustered, far preferring the runs of Police Quest, Space Quest and Quest For Glory. I'd throw money at a Police Quest Kickstarter so hard it'd fall over backward. But reviving King's Quest is clearly the dream for many, and until recently, was a dream of Telltale's.

I remember sitting in Telltale's cramped booth at E3 2011, surrounded by posters teasing various new projects they wouldn't talk about. They would talk about Jurassic Park, the lunatics, but despite clear hints that they were working on something with the old Sierra license, they kept mum.

Digital Trends spotted that Activision have resecured the rights to the ancient adventure series - something that seemed odd in light of Telltale's previous hints that it was now theirs. Oddly enough, it was only a month ago that Telltale were saying they would have news about the game soon, although it seems odd that it would be this news. But a statement from the studio given to DT reads,

"While we deeply love King’s Quest here at Telltale, we can confirm that we are no longer working on the franchise. There was a time last year that we investigated partnering with third party developers to produce the game as a partnership but decided against outsourcing. We are not privy to what plans Activision has for the franchise, if any."

The muddle of King's Quest rights has been long confusing. For ten years Phoenix Online were struggling to get the rights to release their fan tribute, The Silver Lining, eventually ending with Activision's relenting after a phenomenal written assault from potential players. In more recent years, Replay have been trying to license the rights from both Telltale and Activision to create remakes, in the style of their Kickstartered Larry reboot.

Now Replay's Paul Trowe is hinting that Activision has its own plans for the series. But frankly, we've heard that before. Activision seems to have made a career out of sitting on Sierra licenses and doing nothing with them, so I would advise against anyone's holding their breath.