Company News Codex Scoop: Brian Fargo has trademarked cancelled time travel RPG Meantime...and also Van Buren?!

[Infinitron]

Tags: Brian Fargo; Fallout 3 (Van Buren); InXile Entertainment; Meantime

That's right, Roguey has done it again! As you probably know, we recently learned that inXile Entertainment had begun preliminary work on their next RPG. The popular assumption was that the game would be a proper revival of The Bard's Tale, the series of "Wizardry killer" dungeon crawlers that put Interplay on the map way back in the 1980s. But now, this:

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Meantime, in case you're unaware, was an ambitious time travel RPG that was in development at Interplay in the late 80s but never saw release. A resurrection of Meantime has been a popular "black horse candidate" for inXile's next game among fans, but most people thought it was too obscure for that to ever actually happen.

But now, this trademark. Once again, as was the case with Torment back in 2012, it's owned by "Roxy Friday, LLC", which we know is an entity owned by Brian Fargo. Does this mean that inXile's next game is definitely Meantime? I'm not totally sure about that - it is possible that they're just grabbing everything they might someday need before anybody else does. It could even be an elaborate put-on. But judging from what has happened before, the odds just became a lot higher.

UPDATE: Wait, what?

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Okay, I officially don't know what's going on anymore.

 

[evdk]

And the Codex destroys Fargo's carefully built media hype campaign yet again...

 

[Crooked Bee]

I'm just glad they didn't choose to torment the poor Bard's Tale's corpse any further (unless they would've chosen for it to be a blobber, of course).

 

[Morality Games]

Hohoho, Codex (and Roguey) always delivers for the Holiday season.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

They need a project to invest all that Wasteland 2 profit in to.

Oh wait

 

[Sitra Achara]

I bet Brother None told him to do it just to fuck with us.

 

[Grotesque]

This time, it really needs more bloom.

 

[Cosmo]

So western Chrono Trigger it is...

 

[Crooked Bee]

So western Chrono Trigger it is...

Are you trying to hype me up for this or something.

 

[Athelas]

Now watch as all the gaming journo's demonstrate their professional standards by reporting on this news without crediting the Codex as the source.

Although it'll force Fargo to make a statement on whether or not Meantime is in the making.

 

[Diablo169]

If this is just copyright trolling I'ma cry. Otherwise i'm preaty happy about this.

 

[Cosmo]

So western Chrono Trigger it is...

Are you trying to hype me up for this or something.

Maybe, but that's also something i told myself ages ago, when i first read about Meantime...

 

[Crooked Bee]

https://twitter.com/BrianFargo/status/541368697198112768

@RPGCodex The codex investigative unit strikes again.

 

[Zed]

meantime at rpg codex

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I am satisfied. I have recently posted about my preferences for time travel over bards tale and Fargo listened to it. Back in November.... So I guess he has done some successful tests on the time travel as a reference point

 

[garren]

Funny, I was just replaying Chrono Trigger, been like 15 years since I last played it.

..carry on.

 

[General Maxson]

I will definitely support this if it's Meantime. I mean how many time travelling western crpgs do we have? Inxile could really deliver here from all the money they get from W2 and Torment and especially experience that they will have by their 3rd crpg. I have high hopes for them.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Let's have the Wasteland 2 writing team handle the complexities of a time travel plot, great idea.

 

[mindx2]

Let's have the Wasteland 2 Torment writing team handle the complexities of a time travel plot, great idea.

FTFY

 

[KingDinosaurGames]

A+ discovery, hyped as fuckkkkk

 

[Zombra]

Whoa. I was joking when I suggested Meantime in my Kickstarter comments. I mean, I hoped, but I didn't dream they would actually do it. Fucking crazy. Very much looking forward to the announcement, whatever it is, but now I'll be disappointed if it isn't this.

 

[Tzaero]

Now how the hell are they gonna pull this off..

 

[Diablo169]

Now how the hell are they gonna pull this off..

I'm personally hoping for a CRPG version of Radiant Historia and Chrono Trigger.

 

[Visperas]

Was there some kind of story for Meantime back when besides time-travel? Characters? Plot? Anything?

 

[Diablo169]

Was there some kind of story for Meantime back when besides time-travel? Characters? Plot? Anything?

Although set in the same universe as Wasteland, and with similar engine and gameplay, Meantime was to feature an entirely unique storyline. The basic premise was that the player would travel through time, and recruit famous historical figures to the player's party. The party would attempt to repair damage caused by a similar party of time-traveling villains, attempting to alter the course of history by influencing events.

Recruitable characters would be generally limited to people who had met mysterious ends, so as to be in sync with historic events. For example, Amelia Earhart joins the party when she is rescued from a Japanese POW camp, and Wernher von Braun when he is rescued from the Soviets at the end of World War II. Each character would also have a particular specialty; Cyrano de Bergerac, for example, would have an expert fencing skill. It was never stated if the enemy characters would also be historic figures.

If you combine the above with Radiant Historia's non linear branching storylines we could have something amazing. The ability to travel back and fowards in time, and across multiple timelines? I need to lower my expectations.