The Taylor Sheridan Universe continues to expand… this time into the world of video games.
There’s no other way to put it… Sheridan is quite literally a billion-dollar-man. He’s arguably the biggest name in all of television (and movies, for that matter), and is the name behind some of the most successful series in the past decade. Yellowstone averaged just shy of 10 million viewers every episode, and that number stretched even higher during its fifth and final season.
And the monster ratings for that show basically got everything else green lit for Sheridan.
Yellowstone spinoffs continue to bring in millions upon millions of viewers, which is almost unheard of in the modern day of media consumption. Prequels 1883 and 1923 were beloved by Yellowstone fans, and the Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler spinoff that recently premiered, titled Dutton Ranch, just set a record for the biggest premiere on Paramount+. Around 12.9 million people tuned in during the show’s first week.
Then when you factor in other series outside of the Yellowstone brand (but still under the Sheridan umbrella) like The Madison, Mayor of Kingstown, Landman, he simply doesn’t miss. Paramount recognizes that, and they are evidently trying to squeeze all the juice out of the Taylor Sheridan properties that they can before he leaves for NBCUniversal in the coming years.
How are they planning on doing that? Through video games, of course.
While not the main focus of the new Paramount Games Studio (they are apparently planning on franchises like Ninja Turtles and Star Trek to carry their gaming business), the head of creative and production, Shawn Kittelsen, told Polygon that they are exploring bringing some of Taylor Sheridan’s established universes to life in the form of video games:
“All of the ‘Yellowstone’ and Yellowstone-adjacent titles – ‘Landman,’ ‘Tulsa King’ – these are all priorities for us.”
Imagine getting to play as Rip Wheeler and helping to protect the Dutton Ranch. Or grabbing a controller and stepping into the shoes of Tommy Norris? There’s really endless opportunities in the Taylor Sheridan Universe, and it feels like anything Yellowstone would have the easiest transition from TV series to RPG (role-playing games).
Just look at the success of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption franchise… there’s certainly a market for booting up your console or gaming computer and exploring the Wild West.
That being said, the head of creative and production Paramount Games Studio knows that doing too much of something too quickly can come off as a cash grab. No one would blame them for trying to strike the Yellowstone iron while it’s hot… but according to Kittelsen, they’ll be very careful with how they handle adapting Taylor Sheridan’s stories into video games:
“If we start like, willy-nilly licensing everything that we can and just to check boxes and fill the coffers, people will get wise to it, and we won’t actually see the success that we could. But if we build pillar by pillar, find the right partners, and make the right games for the audience, I think we can achieve massive success.
Everything has to come from that player first, fan-first perspective. We’re being much more selective about our partners because everything that we do, we don’t want to just spray and pray. Like we always say: we want missiles, not bullets.”
That sounds to me like, when the time is right to bring Yellowstone video games into existence, they’ll be done right. That could be really exciting for fans of the shows to feel like they can further immerse themselves into the worlds that Taylor Sheridan has been so successful at building in the past decade.
