Telltale Games hasn’t had much to say about its upcoming Game of Thrones series, but a new tweet from the studio seems to indicate that the story could be set in the northern region of Westeros, in the lands overseen (at least early on in the series) by House Stark of Winterfell.
The tweet has little to say; just a hashtag — #IronFromIce — and a title card bearing a presumably telling quote from one of the books by George R.R. Martin.
"…with clan names like FORRESTER"#GameOfThrones: A @TelltaleGames Series
Based on the @HBO Series#IronFromIce pic.twitter.com/Bm99n7qaie
— Telltale (@telltalegames) August 29, 2014
From the series’ fifth book, A Dance With Dragons, we have this partial quote: “…trackers and hunters sworn to Deepwood with clan names like Forrester and Woods, Branch and Bole.” We already know that the game is based on the HBO series, and Telltale founder Dan Connors also told Digital Trends that the game will unfold inside of the same timeline that the TV show follows.
The Martin quote references Deepwood, a castle in the north belonging to House Glover, a vassal of House Stark. It’s also — and this amounts to a spoiler for the HBO series, so beware — the first target attacked and taken by House Greyjoy during the show’s second season, mostly for strategic reasons because of its proximity to the coast of the Bay of Ice.
That’s where our other clue comes in, the #IronFromIce hashtag. Iron could be a reference to the ironborn of the Iron Island, a region ruled over by House Greyjoy. Once a nation of seafaring conquerers that raided the coasts of Westeros, the ironborn remain quiet early on in the HBO series. The attack on Deepwood, Winterfell, and other northern regions of Westeros marks the beginning of a push to reclaim their past glories. And it’s the Bay of Ice that ferries the ironborn ships into battle.
One last item to point out: The Telltale tweet specifically calls attention to House Forrester. Viewed by some as a clan, Forrester has sworn fealty to House Glover of Deepwood. They’ve only been mentioned briefly in the books, which reveal that House Forrester is based is wolfswood, and they’ve never featured into the HBO series.
Remember: There’s a whole lot of speculation here. None of this is confirmed. We’re just drawing some possible conclusions based on what Telltale’s chosen to share. We’ll presumably hear more in the coming days as PAX Prime 2014 gets started. We only know the few tidbits that Connors shared back in March 2014.
“I think the show provides a timeline, but the world is huge. You’re talking about the politics of an entire– it’s like Europe and some other continent,” he said. “There’s so much going on and it’s so rich. Every decision that King Joffrey makes impacts so many people. Any microcosm in that world [looking at how] people are affected by the decisions that are made plays out across the whole thing.”
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.