Syfy has lifted the lid on Defiance, an ambitious science fiction project that pairs a television drama with a massively multiplayer online game. Announced jointly by Syfy and game developer Trion Worlds, it is being built as a single shared world, with events in the series and the game designed to feed into one another.
The show is being developed by Rockne O’Bannon, the creator of Farscape and Alien Nation, alongside Kevin Murphy and Michael Taylor, and is produced by Universal Cable Productions. Syfy has ordered thirteen episodes for the first season, with the series and the game set to launch together in 2013.
Defiance is set in the year 2046, on an Earth remade by decades of terraforming. After a collective of alien races known as the Votans arrive in search of a new home, humans and aliens are left to share a transformed planet. The action centres on the frontier town of Defiance, built on the ruins of St. Louis, where old tensions and new rivalries simmer beneath a fragile peace.
At the heart of the story is Joshua Nolan, a former soldier who becomes the town’s lawkeeper, and his adopted Irathient daughter, Irisa. They sit alongside an ensemble that includes the town’s new mayor, Amanda Rosewater, and the ambitious Castithan couple Datak and Stahma Tarr, as the various human and alien factions jockey for power and survival.
The dual launch marks one of Syfy’s most ambitious bets, with the network and Trion aiming to draw television viewers and gamers into the same evolving universe.