Updated at 6.38 PM
NEW YORK: The Indian epic Ramayana will form the basis of a new online video game for which global entertainment major Sony has teamed up with Richard Branson and new age guru Deepak Chopra.
In a world increasingly dominated by games influenced by western myths, Sony Online Entertainment's (SOE) multi-player game will be based on "Ramayan 3392 AD" -- a comic book from Branson and Chopra's Virgin Comics that re-imagines the epic in a futuristic realm.
Acclaimed filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, a co-founder of Virgin Comics, is also involved in the project.
"Ramayana has inspired the lives of millions of people through the ages. The re-imagining of this great ancient epic through the creativity of a game platform reaffirms the fact that Ramayana is one of the greatest stories ever told, Chopra said in a statement.
The deal for the game was announced by SOE president John Smedley and Sharad Devarajan, CEO of Virgin Comics, in New York on Thursday.
"Virgin Comics approached us with a portfolio of amazing comic properties based on Indian lore. We particularly love Ramayan 3392 AD, as we feel Virgin Comics telling of 'The Ramayana' is particularly gripping, graphically brilliant and lends itself extremely well to an MMO (massively multi-player online video game)," said Smedley.
Chopra said the same creative team of young Indians who created "Ramayan 3392 AD" will be involved in working with Sony's game development team. This was a "testament to the innovative...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", he said.
Virgin Comics chief creative officer Gotham Chopra said, "While many of the characters and settings remain familiar to the original lore, we never intended to retell the story, but essentially use it as the key inspiration for something fresh.
"What remains intact to our story are some of the core universal themes like duty, honour, sacrifice and fraternity, while also mining uniquely Indian ideas like karma (how action and consequence are linked) and the malleability of time itself.
"To bring all of these ideas into a game with SOE is just awesome."
Sony will develop the game and Virgin Comics will serve as a creative consultant on the project. Virgin's creative involvement with Sony's game development team will be spearheaded by its president Suresh Seetharaman, who has overseen the development of the comic series.
