Avellone "very tempted" to run Planescape reboot Kickstarter

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Obsidian designer Chris Avellone has been talking to Games Industry International about the prospect of a Planescape kickstarter. He says that he's "very tempted" by the idea, but suggests that he'd rather create a spiritual successor instead of a direct sequel.

He's especially keen to ditch the D&D ruleset. "I think if you made a game using some of the concepts of Planescape, the metaphysical ideas and the plane travel, without using the D&D mechanics, you could actually come up with a much better game.

"With Torment, I'd argue that the D&D base actually, in places, got in the way of the experience. It was a lot harder to make a game with those ideas in it with D&D mechanics. So much that we had to break a lot of them. We had to ignore certain spells, change up the class mechanic so that you can switch at any time you like by remembering abilities."

The Planescape universe is a licensed Dungeons and Dragons realm, so dropping the ruleset and the license would mean a new setting. "If we did do a spiritual successor, then I don't know if we'd use the Planescape licence or attach the mechanics, perhaps something that has a different feel to Torment," he says.

Avellone is currently helping Brian Fargo with the Wasteland 2 project, the first screenshot of which popped up a few days ago. What would you like to see from a Planescape reboot?

Tom Senior
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.