Brütal Legend will one day get a sequel. Tim Schafer, developer of Double Fine, even said so during an appearance at E3 back in 2017. Speaking alongside Brütal Legend voice actor Jack Black that night on the E3 Coliseum stage, Schafer said a sequel will happen when the time is right.
The very first question that came up in a Q&A session was about Brütal Legend 2. Someone in the audience screamed, “Brütal Legend 2” and Schafer apologized for giving the impression that his panel with Black would lead to an announcement of the game.
That being said, Schafer did give fans some hope when he said, “Someday we’ll make that game.” He added that Brütal Legend 2 will be an “expensive” game to make (I can see why).
Brütal Legend was an action-adventure, real-time strategy game that released to generally strong reviews. With many praising its comedy and unique world, it was published by Electronic Arts in 2009 and cost around $25 million to develop. It remains Double Fine’s best-selling game ever. Schafer said, back in January 2014, that raising that much money (or more) for a sequel “might be tricky.”
Originally, Double Fine believed they were given the go-ahead to develop a sequel to Brütal Legend after the game’s release … but EA decided to up and cancel it after the small studio had invested a great deal of development time. Schafer stated that the sequel would likely incorporate much of what they had to drop prior to the game’s release. This game world would have been three times larger than what Brütal Legend contained, so him stating that the studio would need $25 million to make it or more is not unrealistic.
The sequel also would have likely included a fourth faction that was cut from the original game, which would have been the last major group the player would have to fight through (including a major boss character before the final battles with Doviculus). Schafer further noted that at the end of the original game, Doviculus’ head falls into the Sea of Black Tears, and implied that the same effect that the Sea had on Ophelia could happen to Doviculus. Lastly, Schafer also had ideas for a plot using a character voiced by rock legend and heavy metal icon, Ronnie James Dio, but will not likely be used due to Dio’s death in 2010.
In 2019 at the same convention, Schafer was asked about the possibility of a sequel to the Jack Black-starring action-adventure game. Though Schafer says Double Fine would like to move on to something new first, a sequel may certainly still happen.
“That’s a fun universe, too, that I’d love to go back to, but now we’ve been in sequel mode for a few years and it’d be nice to do something new … but never say never.”
This most recent update at least reaffirms Schafer’s fondness for the series, even if the Double Fine team wants a break from sequels.
One day we will see a sequel to Brütal Legend, but I wouldn’t expect it anytime soon. For now though, Double Fine is releasing Psychonauts 2 for Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2020.
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