Star Wars Director JJ Abrams Is Making a Video Game Called Spyjinx

Star Trek and Star Wars director JJ Abrams isn't stopping at making movies. Bad Robot, his production company, announced it will be working with Chair Entertainment - the developer behind the superlative Shadow Complex and Infinity Blade games - on a new video game called Spyjinx. At the moment, the extent of Abram's actual involvement is unknown.

Barring the announcement little is known about Spyjinx at this point in time. But what we do know is this: it will use Unreal Engine 4 and be available on mobile and PC with an initial release in 2016. According to the game's website it melds "action strategy gameplay, dynamic world building, and RPG character development" and is set in a world of espionage.

"We really wanted to expand into this area of entertainment," said Abrams in an interview, "and typically Hollywood and games have not gone together well."

"One of our primary goals in developing Spyjinx is to make really complicated systems seem simple," said Chair's Creative Director Donald Mustard. The company hopes that the game will be available "eventually, hopefully everywhere that you play games."

You can sign up for the beta on the Epic Games mini-site. With few details and a release next year, we wonder if this is a way for both Bad Robot and Chair to hedge their bets on how Spyjinx would be received. Nonetheless, Chair's track record is solid. The Infinity Blade series has made over $30 million in revenue and Shadow Complex was met with critical acclaim. However, there have been some bumps over the years such as ceasing development on the video game version of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game in order to develop its own properties.