New Novel Brings Albion Online To Life

As Sandbox Interactive continues its push toward a full release of Albion Online, the company has turned its attention to fleshing out the lore of the game’s world and its inhabitants. On February 23rd the company released the first book to be written within the world of Albion Online, named Landfall. The book is available now in both print and eBook formats.

Several weeks before the title’s launch, author Peter Newman sat down with Game Director Robin Henkys to share a few sneak peeks of what fans can expect, and the information is refreshing. Without spoiling the story, the interview proved that the book will take a different approach than novels set in other game worlds.

Unique Challenges

When an author sits down to plan a novel set in a well-defined world, he faces a number of distinct challenges. Established faction relationships, legendary figures, and world-defining regions must be respected, and the kind of storytelling already put forth through published lore, in-game storytelling, and other media must be followed, in order to produce a work which fits within the greater sphere of an established game’s universe. This was not the case with the planning of Landfall. Peter Newman started with a virtually clean slate, tasked with writing a book about a sandbox game whose entire premise revolves around tabula rosa.

Rather than try to force a traditional story into a sandbox world, Newman embraced the idea of characters starting from scratch, and promises that the story of Landfall follows the same kind of exploratory and experimental path as the gameplay itself.

Going the Extra Mile

The author began his research for the book by playing the Alpha version of the game, and he was immediately struck by the uniqueness of the open-world, sandbox gameplay, and the cohesive community forming during the Alpha test. As a result, Newman weaved the characters’ stories around challenges facing real players exploring Albion for the first time: How do they survive the first few days? How do they find others with whom to explore? How do they find their unique niche and role in the world? How and when do they start exploring beyond the limits of the starting areas? This is a fundamentally different approach than we’ve seen in other game-based novels, and promises to appeal to avid players who might normally skip over such titles. Landfall promises to tell a story much like the experience of each player’s in-game character.

Newman hinted that certain notable players or guilds who made a strong impression on the Alpha community will be included in the story, whether through direct contact with the novel’s characters, or as a part of the world around them. This means that notable Alpha players will be embedded in the lore and history of the world itself, and Newman hinted that notable Beta players may find themselves included in a future novel, if the first is successful.

Since he did not have pre-made legendary figures to pull from the game’s lore, Newman found his own legendary figures among the ranks of real people contributing to the early stages of the game’s community. This means that, from this moment forward, the lore of Albion Online is just as organic as players’ interactions with the game world itself. As people play the game they can actually become the historical legends that future newbies will read about.

Newman and Henkys explained that their desire is to make the game and the novel two parts of a single experience for players, rather than the book being an entertaining diversion that is not truly integrated into the player experience. They promise that readers of the novel should have many moments in which they think “Oh yeah, I remember doing that!”

Something to Look For

Near the end of Newman’s interview Robin Henkys appeared to not-so-subtly nudge the author into spilling a light teaser. He noted that Landfall will include elements of future updates to the game, allowing the novel to contribute new lore to the game itself. No matter what may lie within the pages of Landfall it’s clear that Sandbox Interactive and Peter Newman have taken a new and compelling approach to telling stories in a world where anything goes, and in which the players themselves create the legends of tomorrow.

Purchase Darkfall by visiting the official Albion Online website.