The Bard’s Tale IV Prototype Footage Arises

After being granted permission to dig through the archives of Mythic Entertainment, the folks over at Ultima Codex managed to unearth an interesting prototype video of a planned Bard’s Tale fourquel. Embedded version below:

Despite being in Mythic’s archives, the prototype was apparently being developed by Bill Heineman’s Contraband Entertainment, who pitched the idea to EA without results, at least going by this interview snippet and connecting the dots:

Scott: Well I sure hope that someday the saga will continue. If you were allowed to produce BT4, do you have any new ideas in the back of your mind on things you might do differently this time?

Bill: We have a whole game design document and even a prototype of the engine. We pitched the idea to EA about a month ago but they were not interested.

Scott: Oh, that is a shame!!! With your new engine, has the game been enhanced a lot, or does it still look basically the same?

Bill: Completely new game. It has more of an Everquest look to it but all the art and sounds have a Bard’s Tale feel to it.

Scott: What do you think of all the BT pages on the net right now. Is it neat to see people paying tribute to your work?

Bill: I love it. I just wish it would convince someone at EA or Interplay to let us do BT IV.

Thanks, RPG Codex.