Developers from Double Fine would like to return to the studio's heavy metal epic Brutal Legend one day, but Tim Schafer is torn on whether he'd want to focus on the RTS elements or the God of War-y bits for a potential Brutal Legend 2.
Time marched with the same ferocity as a heavy metal album and somehow made Brutal Legend turn 15 years old earlier this month, on October 13, so the studio decided to go down memory lane in a recent 'Brutal Memories' blog that delves into the game's backstory.
Rock iconography everywhere, an unexpected genre mish-mash, Jack Black starring as main man Eddie, Ozzy Osbourne selling you car parts, and a classically Double Fine personality made Brutal Legend endure for more than a decade. People (and Schafer himself) still log online every Rocktober 13, and so it's not unexpected to read that countless fans are always writing into the studio asking, "When is Brutal Legend 2!? When!" Community manager Harper Jay MacIntyre says it's "not in the card now," but "it's certainly a universe many folks here at the studio wonder about returning to."
"People ask about Brutal Legend 2 all the time, and I'm torn about that," director and studio head Tim Schafer says, mainly because of the game's sometimes divisive genre blend. "I know some of them want it with an evolution of the RTS stuff and some of them just want God of War with Eddie Riggs. I understand the logic of making the second option, but I'm much more excited about the first."
The reception to Brutal Legend in 2009 was probably harsher than you might expect for a game that's now beloved, and that's because the parts where you'd hack-and-slash gnarly rock demons soon gave way to bits where Eddie would sprout wings, shoot into the sky, and command armies from above RTS-style. It was RTS GTA, but rock, and it was pretty sick.
"There's so much of a world to explore that could be done in many ways," programmer Chad Dawson says. "It could be an RPG, it could be an RTS. Or even an auto battler!"
Schafer apparently thinks about Brutal Legend's world as a place that can balloon, likening it to Mister Roger's ever-expanding Neighbourhood of Make-Believe. DLC was supposedly considered and shelved, too, and the blog even shows off some scrapped enemies originally intended for a sequel. Who knows, though? The gap between Double Fine's two Psychonauts games was 16 years, so it's never too late for a sequel.
"I think every game we made mattered to somebody," Schafer noted. "They’re all personal, they’re all games we put a distinct spin on. Art is about making connections. You put yourself into this work of art and someone says “I see myself in that!” and that’s a beautiful thing. So it's nice."
