The design team for the new, updated take on the game and setting will include “many who worked on the original Torg line,” according to the announcement, including co-creator Greg Gorden, who’s been involved in the new game and has endorsed it. “The streamlining and modernization of the game mechanics feel spot on,” he said. “I cannot wait to play this game!”
The game is being produced by a studio under the leadership of Shane Lacy Hensley (the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group, publisher of Savage Worlds and Deadlands RPG), which is also responsible for the Dark Eye RPG, another Ulisses Spiele game and the bestselling RPG in Germany.
Rights to Torg went on a circuitous route after West End games was sold to French comics publisher Humanoids, which first published games on its own (see “Metabarons RPG’ Debuts”), then licensed the systems to other companies (see “Humanoids Licenses West End Games Systems”), and in 2004 sold the rights to Eric Gibson and Purgatory Publishing (see “West End Games Is Back in Business”). The rights to Torg were eventually acquired by Ulisses Spiele president Markus Plotz.
In addition to its own games, Ulisses Spiele is also the German licensee of the Pathfinder RPG and a new V20 version of Vampire – The Masquerade, and the German distributor of Privateer’s Warmachine and Hordes, and Corvus Belli’s Infinity.