Exciting news from Fantasy Flight Games and Asmodee as the two tabletop gaming companies are coming together to form a new digital board game studio called Fantasy Flight Interactive.

Fantasy Flight Games are one of the biggest companies in the industry, holding the rights to make games in the worlds of Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings, among others.

In the past, they have had some success transferring some of their games over to app form, most notably Elder Sign and Mansions of Madness, and this move could open up the rest of their catalogue.

They also produce a wide selection of collectable card games, a form of game that is becoming increasingly popular with such video games as Hearthstone and Gwent.

Asmodee also publish some of the most popular board games currently being published, including Splendor and Mysterium. They too have had some success transferring their games over to a digital medium.

Fantasy Flight are a subsidiary of Asmodee Editions, meaning the ties between them are already very strong and this new studio is being established on a strong foundation.

In a statement to GamesBeat, the founder of Fantasy Flight Games and chief executive officer of Asmodee North America, Christian T. Petersen, said:

"We didn’t create a new company just to translate board games into digital games. We’re focused on the bigger picture of the experiences our fans can have on new platforms, and this will take our brands in new directions.”
-GamesBeat

This suggests to me that, as well as straight-up digital interpretations of existing games, Fantasy Flight Interactive could potentially work on new digital games as well.

Heading up the new company is Tim Gerritsen, who has previously worked as Chief Executive Officer of Human Head Studios, who made Prey, and Studio Director of Irrational Games, and Executive Producer on their game Bioshock Infinite.

"We're incredibly excited to be bringing Fantasy Flight Games' best game properties to life as amazing video game experiences. Fantasy Flight Interactive is made up of developers who love both tabletop games and video games and we are striving to create games that capture the best aspects of both media to entertain our fans."
- Gerritsen, gamesindustry.biz

More and more board games are getting turned into video games, allowing them to reach more players outside of their usual demographic and streamlining the rules for ease of play. Given the library of games Fantasy Flight have to draw upon, this is pretty exciting news.

There are plenty of Fantasy Flight's games I have wanted to play in the past, and this should give me the chance to get to grips with them in single player, as well as playing online.

Which games do you most want to see turned into video games?