Ragnar Tørnquist and Longest Journey IP holders Funcom have become inextricably tied to underappreciated, overqualified MMO The Secret World, or so we thought. Who could possibly be working on a sequel to Dreamfall?
“I’m very excited to finally have the opportunity to continue the The Longest Journey saga,” said Ragnar Tørnquist. Um.
It transpires that Tørnquist has extricated himself from Funcom to form a new studio, Red Thread Games. He has licensed the rights to Dreamfall from Funcom, and will continue development on The Secret World only in an advisory role.
“Ever since we ended Dreamfall on a nail-biting cliff-hanger, players have been rightfully demanding a sequel, and my deal with Funcom will finally make that possible,” he told Develop.
“I’m extremely grateful to Funcom for this unique and exciting opportunity, and I can’t wait to dive back into the universe I helped create more than a decade ago, and continue the story players have been waiting for these past six years.”
Pre-production has already begun on the sequel to the latter-day adventure genre highpoint at Red Thread. A Dreamfall sequel has been on “indefinite hold” at Funcom since 2009, when the company began to focus entirely on online games.
“We’ve also received 1M NOK ($175,000) from the Norwegian Film Institute to help fund the first stages of preproduction,” addedTørnquist on Twitter.“Yay!”
“And no, Dreamfall Chapters won’t be an online game. It’s going to be a single-player PC/Mac adventure game through and through.”
Joel Bylos took over as game director for The Secret World a month ago; before that, a round of staff layoffs at Funcom saw the team reshuffled to fill key positions.
Nonetheless, the hands that remain at Funcom are very capable indeed. Are you excited to see what the work of a liberated Tørnquist looks like?