J.J Abrams Enters the Gaming Biz Under Bad Robot Games

If you’re a fan of nerdy movies, there’s a better than good chance you know about Bad Robot, the film and television production company who brought us Westworld, Cloverfield, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the new Star Trek movies, and a bunch of other stuff. It’s run by J.J Abrams, and while it doesn’t always make great movies or TV, it rarely makes anything outright bad, so… I guess it’s pretty on-the-level.

Well, it was just announced that the studio will now be expanding into the world of Video Games, under the banner of Bad Robot Games.

And here’s the kicker: WB games will be involved as a minority shareholder, but the main folks who’ll be behind the launch? Tencent, who’s entering a strategic partnership with J.J Abrhams to make this happen. Not only will they be helping with the publication of the studio’s games, they’ll also play a key role in finding new developers and artists to help make their first games become a reality.

Abrams had this to say:
 

“I’m a massive games fan, and increasingly envious of the amazing tools developers get to work with, and the worlds they get to play in. Now we are doubling down on our commitment to the space with a unique co-development approach to game making that allows us to focus on what we do best, and hopefully be a meaningful multiplier to our developer partners,”

This won’t be the first time that Bad Robot has worked in interactive media – they worked together with another Tencent-adjacent company, Epic, back in 2015 to make Spyjinks, which I’m sure we all forgot about.

I can’t say I’m excited about the idea of ol’ J.J in the world of video games, but I’m not disgusted by it either. It’ll probably work out better than when George Lucas took a stab at it.