Brütal Legend developer “torn” about making sequel to Jack Black’s cult metal video game

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Brütal Legend’s developer is “torn” on how he’d approach a sequel to the cult metal video game starring Jack Black and Ozzy Osbourne.

Tim Schafer, director and studio head at Double Fine Productions, discusses a hypothetical Brütal Legend 2 in a blog post celebrating the original’s 15th anniversary. He says that, despite popular demand, he’d be unsure what genre to make the game, given the original mixed elements of action-adventure and real-time strategy (RTS).

“People ask about Brütal Legend 2 all the time, and I’m torn about that,” Schafer admits. “I know some of them want it with an evolution of the RTS stuff and some of them just want God Of War with [main character] Eddie Riggs. I understand the logic of making the second option, but I’m much more excited about the first.”

Programmer Chad Dawson adds, “There’s so much of a world to explore that could be done in many ways. It could be an RPG [role-playing game], it could be an RTS. Or even an auto battler!”

Schafer has long expressed interest in making Brütal Legend 2. In 2015, he claimed that if Double Fine’s crowd-funded game Psychonauts 2 proved a success, a Brütal Legend sequel would be on the cards. “We’ve always said that we wanted to make sequels to both Psychonauts and Brütal Legend," he said. “We can’t make any promises, but if Psychonauts is a success for us, then perhaps Brütal Legend 2 will be more possible?”

In 2014, Schafer said Black “might be up for” voicing Riggs again in Brütal Legend 2.

The first Brütal Legend – which starred Black as Eddie Riggs and had such rockstars as Osbourne, Motörhead’s Lemmy and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford cameoing as non-playable characters – was released to mixed reviews. Many critics were confused by its genre mashup, which was half demonic beat-’em-up and half strategic. However, the game flourished into a cult classic.