Obsidian riding Wheel of Time

In November 2008, Red Eagle Entertainment landed the rights to make games based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time novels. At the time, many were left wondering whether the start-up production house had the chops to do justice to Robert Jordan's sprawling fantasy universe. Since then, though, Red Eagle has supplemented its efforts in a number of ways, signing on with EA Partners and signing up Hollywood scribe Chris Morgan as story director.

Red Eagle continued its aid-seeking efforts today, announcing that it had solicited Obsidian Entertainment's role-playing game expertise to help develop The Wheel of Time games. As part of the partnership, Obsidian will work with Red Eagle's in-house development team to build out the games for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

"Although Red Eagle Games is both a game producer and publisher, as a new company, we quickly recognized that we could benefit from supplementing small in-house technical and creative teams with a proven third-party developer," Red Eagle Games chief operating officer Larry Mondragon said of the partnership.

Obsidian is no stranger to the role-playing game genre. Formed in 2003 by Black Isle Studios veterans (Fallout, Planescape: Torment), Obsidian has since partnered with BioWare on sequels to the Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights franchises. The studio is currently at work on Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas, both of which are due out later this year.

Red Eagle is also prepping a massively multiplayer online RPG and has partnered with Universal Studios on a live-action motion picture based on The Wheel of Time franchise. The company has yet to attach a release date to any of its Wheel of Time projects.