The upcoming project will be developed in a collaboration between Chair and Abrams’ production company Bad Robot.
Abrams cites inspiration from Chair’s mobile hit Infinity Blade, and expressed a desire to work with the team based on its past successes. Chair previously developed the Xbox Live Arcade standout Shadow Complex, and followed up on Infinity Blade with a pair of sequels in the years after its launch.
“I feel like it’s a natural progression from what we’ve been doing,” Abrams stated. “We really wanted to expand into this area of entertainment. Typically, Hollywood and games have not gone together well. There’s some notable exceptions, but not too many.”
Abrams continues: “This didn’t begin [with Bad Robot suggesting] ‘We have an IP we want to force into a game,’ and [Chair] didn’t come to us saying ‘We want to make a game into a TV show.’ This was like, ‘What would be really cool to work on together that would take the strengths from both what Bad Robot’s done and what Chair’s done, and make something even better?'”
Chair creative director Donald Mustard describes Spyjinx as “an action-strategy game mixed with really dynamic worldbuilding, with a healthy dose of RPG character development.” No other details regarding the game’s content were revealed as part of its initial announcement.
Abrams’ recent body of work includes 2009’s theatrical film Star Trek and its 2013 sequel Into Darkness. Abrams’ latest film Star Wars: The Force Awakens will hit theaters in December as the first entry in a planned sequel trilogy for the popular sci-fi franchise.
Spyjinx is due to launch in 2016 for PCs and mobile devices. Beta signups are now available at the game’s official website.
