Double Fine splitting their company into four teams post-Brutal Legend hasn’t just meant four times as many games – it’s meant four times as many announcements.
In a games news world where the time between discovery and release can be long enough to encompass excitement, backlash and entrenched opinion, that’s been nice: a series of bite-sized chunks of anticipation followed by (more often than not) fulfillment.
Here’s another: the studio’s very first sequel. Costume Quest 2 will see the return of protagonist twins Reynold and Wren – though not lead designer Tasha Harris, who has since returned to a career at Pixar.
“For the last couple of years, whenever Halloween came around, I felt like something was missing,” said Tim Schafer in a statement. “No matter how many pumpkins I carved, apples I bobbed, or candy I ate, it just couldn’t fill the big spooky hole inside of me.
“But then I realized what was missing: I needed more Costume Quest. And also, I really wanted a T-Shirt with glowing skulls on it.”
Costume Quest 2 will be published by Midnight City, the indie label that forms part of Majesco. Majesco funded Double Fine’s first game fourteen years ago: Psychonauts.
The original Costume Quest was released as an XBLA and PSN affair in October 2010 – but its PC version only arrived in time for Halloween the following year.
It’s worth noting, though, that Double Fine have since shifted position from a largely console-first studio to the other side of the spectrum: angel investor Dracogen ensured long-neglected Steam support for Psychonauts, and Kickstarter has funded two PC-only Double Fine games in Broken Age and Massive Chalice.
Given that rapidly changing company climate, it’d be a terrible surprise if Costume Quest wasn’t released on PC alongside the consoles.
Costume Quest returns to a PC gaming landscape already in thrall to a cartoon 2D, turn-based RPG about imaginative children: South Park: The Stick of Truth. Will that do it good or bad, do you think?
Cheers, CVG.