Six things we learned about the 'Sons of Anarchy' game from Kurt Sutter

Sons of Anarchy‘s final season rode off into the sunset—or at least into the grill of a semi—in December. But fans can continue to get their SAMCRO fix in The Prospect, a new iOS game that puts players in the cut of a fresh recruit. While the 10-episode interactive series features a cameo from fan-favorite psycho Tig Trager, the game finds armchair outlaws unraveling the twisted tale of a previously unknown charter and its newest member.

With just the first episode currently available, it’s too early to tell if the The Prospect will earn its patch or meet Mr. Mayhem. But based on our recent conversation with Kurt Sutter—who oversaw the game’s general creative direction—it sounds like fans could be gripping their iPhones tighter than a Harley’s handle bars.

It’s not a phoned-in cash grab.

“My mandate was two-fold: One was that it was driven by story and character…that it wasn’t just a hop-on-a-bike-and-shoot-somebody-in-the-face-and-ride-away game. And that whatever we did, it didn’t contradict existing mythology or lead to a path of mythology that might somehow impact things we may want to do with novels or potentially the prequel at some point. Those were my two big creative demands. Then I put one of my writers, Roberto Patino, on it and he became the point person for Orpheus [the game’s developer], writing dialogue and steering them through narrative. I would get story points of where it was going, and then either tweak or sign off on those.”

Its story and characters are canon.

“I love the idea that we now have a storyline and a character…characters in this other charter that we never really knew much about and that can exist. And not that I would try to weave that into any future storylines, but if I want to, I feel like it’s been legitimately established, you know what I mean?”

It shares the show’s morality-taxing themes.

“I think even though the characters aren’t necessarily familiar, there is a sense of, “Oh yeah, this is the show, this is the world, these are the decisions these guys have to make.” The decisions you make in the first episode, although they inform the process in terms of the decisions you make and the type of game you play, are ultimately thematically what happens on the show. All those themes of right and wrong and the choices…“Wow, am I really going to do this?, Can I live with myself?, At what point does my sense of morality become more important than my dedication to the club?”… I think are hand-in-hand with what we did on the show.”

It’s fun being a prospect.

“I love the idea of being a prospect. We’ve had prospects on the show, and we’ve seen their interactions and the choices they’ve made—but we’ve never really lived the life as a prospect. It’s a whole different experience. I also dig the idea that, as a player, you’re going in with no preconceived notion of who that character is; whereas if you were playing as Jax or Bobby or somebody that you know, you’d sort of have a preconceived notion of who that person is and the choices that they would make. This is a fresh character and you sort of get to decide who he is.”

More SAMCRO vets could show up.

“I think when it makes sense and again, it doesn’t impact other mythology, we will continue to weave in characters, whether it be Tig or others, especially if we continue to do more seasons of it.

The Prospect may ride again.

“I think if the response is good and if the episodes continue to sell, then there will probably be an appetite both from fans and from the studio to continue. Then we decide whether or not we continue to tell this story, or does it become some sort of an anthology-based thing where each season is a different charter and a different story.”