Obsidian Entertainment - Return to the Wasteland

[RPGWatch]

Return to the Wasteland is an interview at Games Industry with Obsidian's Chris Avellone, talking mostly about Kickstarter, South Park and more:

Q: One last thing. Tempted by a Planescape Kickstarter?

Chris Avellone: Yes! Very tempted.

Q: It seems like a prime target...

Chris Avellone: Yeah - I think the challenges we've spoken about would all have to be considered and to be honest I don't know if I'd want to do it as a Planescape game - I think a better approach would be to ignore the D&D mechanics and respect what Planescape was trying to do and what the game did and see if you can do what Fallout did when it became the spiritual successor to Wasteland.

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.

That was stuff that D&D didn't allow for, it was to restraining in some respects. 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.

[Darion]

Nice one.

But I do not envy the Developer that want to take a shot at a new Planescape,
for Planescape: Torment casts a large shadow.