For those who want extra proof we stay within the worst of all attainable worlds, how’s this: Beamdog as soon as put Dragon Age creator David Gaider to work on a full-fat sequel to Planescape: Torment—a key inspiration for Disco Elysium, the most effective videogame narratives ever advised, and the present #29 on PC Gamer’s High 100—just for the undertaking to die a gradual, quiet demise as a result of no writer needed to throw cash at it.
That is in line with Gaider himself, who’s presently going off on Bluesky about his lengthy profession arc that took him from becoming a member of BioWare in 1999 to co-founding his personal studio, Summerfall, in 2017. Between these two issues, Gaider was enlisted by Beamdog founder Trent Oster to function inventive director on the studio, which you most likely know for its enhanced editions of the unique Baldur’s Gate video games and Planescape: Torment.
“[Oster] advised me Beamdog was beginning to do their very own initiatives,” stated Gaider. “They had been ending Siege of Dragonspear, an growth for BG1, however extra importantly they had been additionally as much as one thing else: a sequel to Planescape: Torment, for which that they had [PS:T lead designer] Chris Avellone on board as a marketing consultant. Now THAT caught my curiosity.”
The unique Torment was set in (shock!) Planescape, a marketing campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons that chucked out the acquainted Tolkienian fantasy stuff you bought in BG1 and a couple of in favour of dimension-hopping, trope-defying weirdness. Attracted by the potential to “break all of the ‘customary’ guidelines of CRPGs,” Gaider signed up.
Gaider and his group “put collectively a plan for what ended up being known as Planescape: Unraveled, the place you performed as considered one of three points of Ravel Puzzlewell racing towards time to unravel the thriller of your individual existence.” Which sounds prefer it might have been fairly rattling cool, if you happen to ask me.
Ravel Puzzlewell was a key determine within the unique Planescape: Torment—she’s the extremely highly effective witch who initially stripped the sport’s protagonist of his mortality, and ended up confined to an interplanar jail by the enigmatic Girl of Ache for, uh, making an attempt to free the Girl of Ache. It is a bizarre setting.
Gaider was sizzling to trot. “It was sharp, it had nice NPC’s, WotC was so enthusiastic about it they had been keen to maneuver up their plans for third version Planescape and embrace a number of the characters and seismic occasions from the sport within the setting reboot.” All the celebrities appeared to have aligned to get a Planescape sequel onto retailer cabinets. After which, properly, cash.
“The issue? Funding. WotC wasn’t in a spot to do greater than give a stamp of approval, and the publishers we met… properly, Trent is aware of greater than I do, however I feel there was a notion that Planescape wasn’t very profitable or business. Or possibly they simply did not have confidence in Beamdog, or me.”
Beamdog by no means discovered a writer keen to place cash the place Gaider’s mouth was, so “by the tip of 2016, we needed to put Planescape: Unraveled on the shelf and begin one thing new.” That new factor was an “Previous West exorcist recreation” that Gaider had tried to get off the bottom again at BioWare. Alas, that one did not entice publishers both, and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than it too ended up shelved and Gaider departed Beamdog for brand new pastures.
It is an actual disgrace, as a result of the notion of enjoying as Ravel is an attention-grabbing one, however possibly it is not too stunning. The total checklist of videogames set particularly in D&D’s Planescape setting consists of Torment and… no, truly that is it. The closest we ever received to a sequel to the sport, regardless of its enduring recognition and acclaim, was inXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera, which jettisoned D&D totally in favour of Monte Cook dinner’s Numenera tabletop setting.
Given that recreation is now self-published (after being initially revealed by Techland), I feel it is truthful to say that ‘cerebral, narrative-heavy RPG that is largely textual content’ is only a powerful one to get publishers enthusiastic about, even after they’re direct sequels to the most effective video games of all time.
