Rumors suggest that the Japanese video game George R.R. Martin consulted on is being developed by From Software. The Dark Souls developer has neither confirmed nor denied this rumor, but modders may have found confirmation of their own. Specifically, there could be references to the upcoming game hidden in the game files for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Sekiro Game Files Hint At George R.R. Martin Collaboration
The evidence which Sekiro’s modding community unearthed is admittedly thin, but still worth examining. According to GamesRadar (via PC Gamer), a Sekiro modder known as TKGP discovered references to something called ‘Great Rune.’ The reference is a folder labeled as ‘GR’ in Sekiro’s materials configuration file.
More granular findings include the fact that Sekiro’s standard assets are stored in an entirely separate ‘NTC’ folder. Again, this suggests that assets which From utilized for Sekiro are also be used for whatever Great Rune is. Finally, the presence of an ‘m99’ debug map suggests that Great Rune will use From’s internal game engine.
Previous speculation regarding the Great Rune project is surprisingly in-depth. Sources suggest it’s a partially open-world game set in a fictitious rendition of the Ancient Norse world. Given the dark and violent themes of Ancient Norse culture, having George R.R. Martin involved would make perfect sense.
Now, to be clear, much of what we laid out above is nothing more than speculation and theory. As of this writing, the only thing that’s been confirmed is that George R.R. Martin consulted on a Japanese game. Still, it’s not unlike From Software to tuck hidden clues into its games. As both PC Gamer and GamesRadar note, a reference to Sekiro’s protagonist was even hidden in Bloodborne.
For the time being, speculation is really all that From Software fans have to go on. We’ll hopefully learn more about Great Rune (if it is indeed real) during this month’s E3 conference. And even if George R.R. Martin didn’t contribute to it, yet another From Software game is hardly a bad thing.