Crowfall’s broad strokes sound like an MMO influenced by ‘Game of Thrones’

Massive multiplayer online games haven’t seen a whole lot of innovation in the last decade. One developer wants to change that.

Last month, we told you that two MMO vets created a new studio, ArtCraft, in the hopes of revitalizing the genre. Now we now the name of its first game, Crowfall, which will focus on political alliances and feudal conquest. That concept will sound familiar to any fans of the HBO fantasy show “Game of Thrones.”

ArtCraft’s founders are J. Todd Coleman and Gordon Walton. Coleman previously worked on MMOs Shadowbane and Wizard 101. Walton was the executive producer for Ultima Online, Star Wars: Galaxies, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. They say that they’re making a game for players who want an immersive, more visceral experience.

They plan to slowly roll out details for Crowfall.

“Between now and late February — when all of the details of the game will be revealed — we’re going to be playing a game called rampant speculation,” Coleman said in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “We’ll be dropping hints, screenshots, images, videos, storylines … painting a picture in broad strokes. We’ll see how long it takes our fans to figure out what it means, and how it works.”

Even before announcing Crowfall, ArtCraft received 10,000 registrations on the teaser site Play2Crush for its first project. Still, it will need a lot more interest than that to make an impact on the MMO market, which World of Warcraft has dominated since its release in 2004. It has over 10 million subscribers as of November, when its highly anticipated Warlords of Draenor expansion launched.