When Defiance launches on Syfy in April of next year, it won’t just be a sci-fi series for television—it’ll also be an MMO shooter developed by Trion Worlds. Today, we get the first commercial for the show and the game both.

Having a TV series and a game co-created and running in tandem seems like a somewhat unusual idea—but one that could also be quite interesting. From what I understand, the game portion of Defiance will have storylines unfolding that’ll happen no matter if you’re around to see them or not. So, instead of the game advancing based on your completion of quests or events, it’ll be a continually running advancement.

Where that could get compelling—and I’m not sure if this is the case or not—is if that progression happens along with the TV series. Imagine watching the latest episode of Defiance, and a major plot point occurs; then, the next time you boot up the Defiance MMO, the game’s world has also been affected by that event.

Of course, there are a lot of questions and variables surrounding a marketing tie-in strategy like what Syfy and Trion Worlds are doing with Defiance. No matter what, though, it’ll be fascinating to see how things play out.