Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has signed an exclusive, worldwide license agreement with Sir Richard Branson’s and Deepak Chopra’s Virgin Comics to create a video game based on the popular comic book Ramayan 3392 A.D. The massively multiplayer online title will initially be released for PC.
Virgin Comics will serve as a creative consultant on the project, and its efforts will be spearheaded by company president Suresh Seetharaman, who also oversaw development of the comic series. Also involved is acclaimed filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, a co-founder of Virgin Comics who created Ramayan 3392 A.D. with Chopra.
“Ramayan has inspired the lives of millions of people through the ages,” says Chopra. “The fact that the same creative team of young Indians that created the [comic book] story will be involved in working with SOE’s game development team, is a testament to the innovative and mythic minds of these gifted Indian creators who will take a new generation to new frontiers across the seas of consciousness into new realms of mystery, magic, adventure and transformation.”
“Virgin Comics approached us with a portfolio of amazing comic properties based on Indian lore,’ adds SOE president John Smedley. ‘We particularly love Ramayan 3392 A.D., as we feel Virgin Comics’ telling of The Ramayana is particularly gripping, graphically brilliant and lends itself extremely well to an MMO.”
Virgin Comics’ Ramayan 3392 A.D. debuted on shelves in late 2006. The comic re-imagines one of India’s greatest epic legends as a futuristic tale that employs many characters, settings and from the original story. At the core of the series are such universal themes as duty, honor, sacrifice and fraternity, as well as uniquely Indian ideas including karma and the malleability of time.
