Activision Takes King’s Quest License Back from Telltale

It was over two years ago when Telltale games first announced that they had managed to persuade Activision to allow them to obtain the rights the the classic adventure game series from Sierra, King’s Quest. News has just emerged that Activision have now gone back on that decision.

Telltale Games had been holding onto the property rights for quite a while now, and the studio has revealed that they were having trouble trying to spread the workload – after they had taken on King’s Quest, Fables and The Walking Dead – all around the same time.

Eventually Telltale realised that they couldn’t manage all of the jobs by themselves, and looked to Replay Games – the studio who is working on the Leisure Suit Larry Kickstarter-funded remake – to help out. Unfortunately, nothing came of this, and now the rights to King’s Quest have returned to Activision. Paul Trowe of Replay Games claims to have approached Activision since about acquiring the rights for their-selves, and he says that a representative at the gaming giant told him “No, we’re pulling it because we’re going to do it ourselves.”

It will certainly be interesting to see what plans Activision does really have for King’s Quest, and lets hope that they aren’t just going to sit on it, especially as other studios have expressed interest in reviving the series.

The latest series from Telltale – The Wolf Among Us – is due for release this Summer.