Rockstar has been pushing into a number of different media to promote the release of Team Bondi's L.A. Noire. Last month, the Take-Two subsidiary demoed the cinematic crime drama at the Tribeca Film Festival, the first online games to be shown in such a way. Rockstar also believes L.A. Noire's plot stands up in the literary realm, as the publisher today announced a short story anthology for the game.
Rockstar has tapped eight writers to craft stories based in L.A. Noire's world for inclusion in the anthology. Pulitzer Prize nominee Joyce Carol Oates is the most recognizable of these names, which also include Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski, and Andrew Vachss.
Masters of the story trade will be telling their own L.A. Noire shorts.
Masters of the story trade will be telling their own L.A. Noire shorts.
The collected stories will feature many of the characters china tours and cases that play out in the game itself. Plotlines teased by Rockstar include an actress craving Hollywood fame, as well as tales of broken heroes and prototypical Noir villains.
As for the game, L.A. Noire follows Detective Phelps as he becomes entangled in a violent web of vice, corruption, and crime in 1940s Los Angeles. Players jump into the seedy underworld of the metropolis and are tasked with solving a series of murders in what Rockstar describes as an "open-ended challenge."
L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories will be available as an e-book through major retailers beginning June 6, and an excerpt of Megan Abbott's "The Girl" is now available through Rockstar's website. The game itself is expected to arrive for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 17.
