The Bard's Tale (1985 Video Game) - Sequels

Sequels

The Bard's Tale was both a best-seller and a critical success, and produced three official sequels:

• The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight
• The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate
• The Bard's Tale Construction Set

A compilation of all three The Bard's Tale games, entitled The Bard's Tale Trilogy, was released for DOS by Electronic Arts in 1990.

According to Bill Heineman (programmer of The Bard's Tale III) the name of the overall series was to be Tales of the Unknown, and the three games were to be entitled The Bard's Tale, The Archmage's Tale, and The Thief's Tale. This is supported by the cover art of the original Bard's Tale release, which proclaimed the game as "Tales of the Unknown, Volume I." However, the immense popularity of the first game prompted Electronic Arts to re-brand the series under the more well-known name.

What was originally going to be The Bard's Tale IV became Dragon Wars.

In 2003, Brian Fargo (who created maps for the first two Bard's Tale games and directed the third) left Interplay Entertainment and began a new game development company named InXile Entertainment. In 2004 they released their first game, also titled The Bard's Tale, an irreverent console-style top-down action game which pokes fun at traditional fantasy role-playing game tropes—such as, for example, those found in the original Bard's Tale. It was not a sequel to the classic series, nor was it connected in any respect apart from the title. Although a legal loophole allowed InXile to use the Bard's Tale name and the company had evidently planned to incorporate more elements of the original games, Electronic Arts still owns the original trademarks for the Bard's Tale series itself, and InXile was not legally allowed to use any of the plot, characters or locations featured in the original trilogy.