Before that there was an animated project that couldn’t get the finances together or something. The American Pie brothers, I forget their names, had a film project in 2007. Yasin Hillborg: To my knowledge, Elric of Melnibone, the license has been tied up for years, for different film projects I’d say. How did the license become available to you? Did they decide finally that video games might be a cool thing to do? I was in high school when I was reading them. GamesBeat: This is one of my favorite book series of all time from way back when.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. In other words, it’s a really rich universe to mine for future video games. Moorcock’s literary creations include Corum, the Dancers at the End of Time, Hawkmoon, Jerry Cornelius, Von Bek and Elric of Melniboné. This kind of multiverse, with its own Moorcock fantasy flavor, isn’t so far from the threads that shape the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the talk of the metaverse today. I love it because Moorcock’s series about Elric was just the jumping off point for a larger universe about the Eternal Champion and a “multiverse” of worlds where the doomed heroes journeyed in hopes of saving the world. The independent-focused companies hope to ship a narrative action computer game in 2024. Stockholm, Sweden-based Runatyr will work with development collective Aurora Punks and United Kingdom-based studio Upstream Arcade on the project. (Hillborg said he wasn’t yet ready to talk about the game’s art style, but he said the contributions of fans have been amazing.) Elric has also been drawn countless times. The Finnish version of Dungeons in Dragons in the 1980s had Elric’s sword, Stormbringer, on its cover. The band Blue Oyster Cult made songs about Elric. Over time, Elric has become a huge part of fantasy culture. But a year ago, he was contacted again by Moorcock’s agent, who said the rights to a game were now available.

He was told at the time that the ancillary rights to the video game were tied up in a movie license that failed to come through.

Hillborg said he inquired about the rights to Elric a couple of years ago after a chance conversation triggered the idea.

Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock