Brothers in Arms games get their own TV series

Gearbox Software is going to make a TV series based on the Brothers in Arms game series. This series revolves around a group of soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines in World War II.

According to Gearbox Software, the first season of the TV series is about “the biggest scandal” of World War II. The developer says this scandal has been kept secret for 40 years. Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford told The Hollywood Reporter that the first episodes focus on an operation called Exercise Tiger, a kind of pre-D-Day exercise that went completely wrong. According to the showrunner of the series, Scott Rosenbaum, the event has never been dramatized on TV and nearly eight hundred American soldiers were killed. This fact, according to him, was kept under wraps at the time, as the Allies were preparing for the real landings in Normandy.

The story centers on a group of eight men who must rescue their colonel from the Germans before the Axis powers get their hands on information about the D-Day landings. The series will focus on characters from both sides, including those who actually lived during World War II.

In addition to showrunner Scott Rosenbaum, who has worked as a producer and writer on The Shield, among others, producers Jean-Julien Baronnet and Richard Whelan will contribute. The latter two were responsible for the game film adaptation Assassin’s Creed and Band of Brothers: The Pacific respectively.

Production has not yet started and an “active search for directors” is currently underway. Gearbox says it won’t just be a classic war series. According to Randy Pitchford it will be more than that and Rosenbaum will also make it an emotional journey, with brotherhood as the central theme.

Brotherhood is also a theme in the various games, of which the 2005 release Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, and the 2005 sequels Earned in Blood and 2008 Hell’s Highway are best known. The tactical shooters are based on real events. The original was very innovative at the time and revolved around the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, a group of soldiers parachuted into occupied Saint-Côme-du-Mont during D-Day. The games have a first-person perspective and are characterized by a strong tactical approach, in which encirclement, positioning and cover fire are important elements.