Activision gets franchise rights to King's Quest, Telltale no longer working on reboot

Publisher and developer Activision has acquired the rights to the King's Quest franchise from Telltale Games, according to Telltale's Senior VP of Publishing, Steve Allison.

In a statement published by Digital Trends that was also sent to Polygon, Allison confirmed that Telltale, which had an agreement with the original rights holder, Activision, is no longer working on the franchise and the rights have returned to Activision.

The statement reads:

"While we deeply love King's Quest here at Telltale, we can confirm that we are no longer working on the franchise. There was a time last year that we investigated partnering with third party developers to produce the game as a partnership but decided against outsourcing. We are not privy to what plans Activision has for the franchise, if any."

According to Digital Trends, Replay games president Paul Trowe, who successfully launched a Kickstarter campaign for a remake of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, wanted to remake King's Quest himself by licensing the franchise from Activision. However, he said Activision was taking back the rights to King's Quest "because we're going to do it ourselves."

King's Quest was originally designed and released by Sierra Entertainment in 1984, with the latest King's Quest game releasing in 1998. In 2008, Sierra's parent company, Vivendi Games, merged with Activision, and Activision then became the rights holder to King's Quest. In February 2011, Telltale Games entered into an agreement with Activision and announced it was working on a reboot of the series.

We have reached out to Activision and Telltale games for comment.