South Park: The Stick of Truth had a long journey to store shelves. The animated RPG had to survive a publisher change and multiple delays before finally releasing on Xbox 360 and PS3, but the final product has grabbed a great deal of critical success thanks to solid mechanics and smart writing. It’s not a decision that he takes lightly, but South Park co-creator Matt Stone has left the door open for a sequel to be produced.
“We’ll see how it’s received,” he told IGN before the game launched. “This was a hellacious undertaking – much more than when we signed up for it. Never say never. I would do it again, in some fashion. I think that video games are really interesting.”
Why was the game so difficult to produce? Stone first thought that he could be a casual member of the development team, but after a few months, it became clear that he’d have to get fully immersed.
“You sit and watch South Park [on TV] a certain way…[and] a game is consumed a certain way. It engages different parts of your brain,” he explained. “The natural rhythms of comedy that we know pretty well from the TV comedy universe, they’re different from a game. And they have to be different, and you can’t resist it. You have to go, ‘Yeah, it’s gonna be different’ instead of being a joke. It’s gonna be a tool that you use that’s gonna be funny when you use it. I would start differently now if we started again.”
People love the game, so while we probably won’t get an announcement any time soon, a sequel is very likely.