Tim Schafer: no Brutal Legend sequel

During a recent panel at Develop 2010 in Brighton, England, Double Fine Productions head and Brütal Legend creator Tim Schafer has revealed that there will be no sequel to 2009's affectionate parody of heavy metal.

“Apparently when they said it was a done deal, they meant there was no deal, and we're done,” said Schafer.

However, Double Fine is still working on “multiple projects with smaller budgets”. While Schafer has not revealed many details about them, the heads of each project have been named.

Brütal Legend art director Lee Petty is leading development on a game Schafer described as “sort of retro but also really new.” Nathan Marts, Brütal Legend lead programmer, is devloping a “quite cutting-edge” game. Brad Muir, Brütal Legend combat and multiplayer designer, is creating a game which “focuses on gameplay mechanics.” Former senior animator at Pixar and lead animator for Brütal Legend Tasha Harris is heading up a fourth game, of which even fewer details are known.

"When you only make one game at once, everything about that games defines you ... you are the company that makes that game," Schafer said. Other reasons cited include fewer publisher demands due to lower budgets, and employees being able to join projects they enjoy as opposed to being stuck on four and a half years of heavy metal.

Each of these games surfaced as demos in an internal development competition, and Schafer said that he was “quite surprised” when they were all picked up by publishers.

No further details have been released at this time.