Dark Horse Comics, Oregon's indie comic and manga publisher famous for works such as Hellboy and video game tie-ins such as The Last of Us: American Dreams, has established a games division to adapt its original IPs into games. The news of Dark Horse Games was announced via the company's website.
"Our mission is to bring joy and entertainment through Dark Horse Comics’ portfolio of over 425 story driven, diverse and unique worlds and characters, by bringing them to games," reads the site. The team goes on to suggest popular and evergreen IPs such as Hellboy, Sin City, 300, and Emily The Strange may all be considered, among others, for future video game adaptations.
We've already seen some of the label's biggest properties, such as 300 and The Umbrella Academy, be adapted into TV or film over the years, but to date any video game adaptations have been licensed by third-party partners. Now, with the leadership of former Improbable strategist Johnny B. Lee, the team says it's ready to handle these projects as the publisher itself.
"Johnny is currently the GM of Dark Horse Games, and has deep experience in games and media & entertainment, cross border M&A and investments, and multi-faceted strategic partnerships," reads his bio. "Previous to Dark Horse Games, he led business development and commercial strategy in Northern and Eastern Europe, Korea, SEA and Hollywood at Improbable, a games technology and content business supported by Andreesen Horowitz, Softbank Vision Fund and Netease Games."
Dark Horse Games says it's in "active discussions with the world’s top gaming companies to develop games with our IPs to be released over the next several years and across all platforms (mobile, PC, console, and cloud)." It will likely be years before we hear anything more on the subject, but for comic fans, few brands carry the weight of Dark Horse, and with a cache of IPs that fans adore, the prospects of video game adaptations of these seems bright from this distance.
