Peaky Blinders VR game explores "missing years" with "fearsome" Arthur

We’d previously spoken about the company’s work on various Doctor Who games, most recently The Edge of Reality that starred Jodie Whittaker and David Tennant.

As well as telling us that the role of Polly will be recast in the Peaky Blinders game, Russ Harding guided us through the story, characters, development and what you can expect in terms of gameplay in Peaky Blinders: The Kings Ransom.

While you wait for the upcoming Peaky Blinders movie, this could be a major treat for fans that have access to VR headsets. Keep on reading to learn all about the game, from one of the key people behind it.

What was it about Peaky Blinders that you felt lends itself to the gaming world?

What we found really appealing was, it's a world that everyone really wants to experience and be in. You can see that from the community that's built around Peaky Blinders, and the amount of people that attend events and want to be in that world.

And I think [showrunner] Steven Knight has created a slightly fantastical version of the 1920s that really feels like a place you want to be. And also the characters are really compelling, you want to be with them. So we felt was a really strong VR proposition.

And what can you say about how players will be able to interact with that world?

So for us, it's about really immersing the player in that world so that you can interact and feel and be part of that world. You get to explore some of the really iconic locations. And we take you down to London to explore a bit of Limehouse later on. So really immersing the player in that world, [with] really reactive characters to try and keep the presence, bearing in mind that we're also dealing with some amazing performances by Paul Anderson, and Cillian Murphy.

But making you feel very present and the characters feel as though they're aware of you. And for us, authenticity as well is really, really key. And when it comes to action, I mean, we try and stay very true to Peaky. It's not a mass combat game. It's very much about the dramatic action, and it’s more about some of those really weightful moral dilemmas that you'll have to make, in the way that you fit into the ruleset of Thomas Shelby.

How involved was Peaky Blinders showrunner Steven Knight? And the BBC? Was it similar or different to your work on Doctor Who games?

We mainly worked with Banijay, formerly Endemol Shine, and Caryn Mandabach Productions, so we worked really, really closely with them. And it's not dissimilar to the work that we did on Doctor Who.

For us it was very much about having a really close relationship with the showrunners, the game proving out that we really wanted to be authentic to the show, getting them involved in our script iteration and getting Stephen Knight's feedback and the executive team at Caryn Mandabach. Again, to make sure that we're really really staying true and authentic to the show, that the tone of the script was right. Yeah, so fairly similar in approach.

What was it like working with Paul Anderson and Cillian Murphy? That must be like a dream come true for any fan of the show.

Yeah, no, definitely. We worked with Paul Anderson on mo-cap. I mean, Arthur is a fearsome character to meet in VR, and his performance is just very animated, and it's a unique capture of Arthur. And that they are so the characters themselves.

They need little direction. In fact, they often had their own direction. Cillian was.. it was just amazing to work with him as, you know, he's coming from the show as Tommy. And again, a bit like the Doctors we've worked with before, they so embody the character over 10 years, they just know it inside out.

And how does the player-character fit into all that? You're not playing as Tommy or Arthur, are you?

Yeah, so you do play a character within in the game, a character called Sam, who previously was fleeing from a firing squad. And you turn to Thomas Shelby, really, to gain a job. And you get involved in the hunt for Churchill's red box, and you get involved in a plan by Tommy. So you sort of put on a desire to join join the Shelby gang, but yeah, it puts you in a lot those moral dilemmas that you may face being part of that underworld.

It's just a shame that you can't wear a flat cap and a VR headset at the same time, isn't it?

[Laughs] Yeah. We are running a competition actually, for a Meta Quest headset that has a cap on it. I'm not sure what it's gonna look like, but yeah, we're pretty excited.

And when is the game set in relation to the show?

It's deliberately set between seasons four and five. And again, that just gave us an opportunity to create something that was unique, but also within canon lore, and those missing years always quite interesting to kind of explore. It's also a good time for the Shelby family - they were quite on the rise and they're quite formidable at that point.

And Tommy's a politician as well. So there's lots of interesting conflicts going on. We've also got the conflict of socialism and communism starting up, so there's a lot of dispute and warring going on around the Peakies, including their family and rival gangs.

And was it a struggle or not, trying to tell a new story at that point, without treading on anything that was planned for the current season six and the upcoming movie and so on?

No, actually. Weirdly, we seem to be quite in tune without even knowing what the next season was going to be. There was a bit of guidance, but pretty much. I think because we we work with a writers' workshop to start with, and we worked through a story Bible with the showrunners, there's a lot of keeping ourselves aligned with the production.

And because we're in between years, we knew where it was going to come out, because we already knew where season five started and when season four ended, which is why we picked that era, because it felt like we at least knew where Tommy sat.

Were you able to visit the set of the show much?

No. I mean, it was a little bit unfortunate that obviously, there was so many complications around COVID, I think we would have had a lot more visits to set and things [were it not for the pandemic].

But again, there was a tonne of material that they shared, and we shared a lot of material from set designers. And yeah, we even went to the Black Country Museum a little while ago just to sort of get ourselves into Charlie's Yard.

Can we expect any other familiar faces beyond Cillian Murphy and Paul Anderson?

They're the main two from the cast, but there's some familiar-looking characters. There's some new characters, as well, that will link into Peaky lore, which is quite exciting to be able to introduce.

And I think what Steven Knight does so brilliantly is that he brings in these new characters, but they always feel like they're part of the world, and you know who they are and where they sit, and he's very good at threading those characters and connecting them in a really authentic way. And he's allowed us and helped us do that with some characters of our own, which is always exciting.

And just so players know how to prepare, are you able to say which VR headsets this will be available on? Is it PC VR only, or will it be on PlayStation VR as well?

It's not confirmed yet. I think we'll go out on Meta Quest 2 and, as Steam says, PC VR. We haven't confirmed PlayStation yet.

And am I right in saying that you're interested in keeping this game going with updates and new content after launch?

Yeah, it's a possibility. I think for us, we're planning hopefully a longer roadmap with Peaky, and being able to keep delivering content. And I think the world itself is fascinating enough to keep extending. So we hope to sort of like build out around Peaky in the future.

Peaky Blinders: The King's Ransom will launch on 9th March 2023 for Steam, Meta Quest 2 and Pico 4.

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