Daedalic on finding the right way to adapt Pillars of the Earth

German adventure game specialists Daedalic are making a game based on Ken Follett's classic novel The Pillars of the Earth. We have a chat with Matthias Kempke to learn more about the early work that has been done and what kind of concept they are thinking of.

"For a project like this, it's a true epic of a novel, we of course have to search for the right way to adapt it as an interactive narration," says creative lead Matthias Kempke. "It's not only me, but I'm working together with Kevin Mentz, who is doing The Devil's Men right now and also did the great Memoria."

Kempke also described how they went about securing the partnership with Ken Follett after having first hatched the idea to adapt the novel to a video game.

"After I had read the book I identified some key artwork we could present to him. So we created some artworks about the characters, the good guys, the villains, some architecture. The approach when you ride a horse through the English landscape and close in on Kingsbridge on a winter day. How could that look like? And so we made different posters for that and a little video with music. So we show him part of a game that didn't really exist. And it was really exciting to see what he might think about that, cause of course it is his book, his world. Would he be interested and would he recognise what he had done?"

So what did he say then? "He liked it. And he was really interested in how we visually approached this and also how we might be able to make players relive the story or introduce them to the world of Kingsbridge."

Kempke was not keen to divulge any details on the nature of the game, basically because it is still being decided and designed.

Pillars of the Earth is planned for release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One in 2017.