Grim Fandango 2 and other sequels Tim Schafer would love to make, but he prefers to create new games like Brutal Legend
Tim Schafer worked at LucasArts for 10 years making adventure titles like The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. He’s known for working heavy doses of humor into his games, in 2000 Schafer left LucasArts to start his own company, Double Fine, which went on to release the critically acclaimed Psychonauts in 2005. In a recent interview he talks about how he’d love to make sequels yet would rather make something new, but first about some choice quotes about the change of times…
Schafer: “In 1990, Monkey Island took nine months to make and cost $200,000. In the early ’90s, we were really excited if we sold 100,000 copies of a PC graphic adventure. I think Monkey Island 2 sold 25,000 copies. Full Throttle is the first game I made that cost $1 million. That was 1995 and we were shocked. Before that they had cost around $300,000. And Full Throttle took a year and a half to make, which was crazy at the time. Now games take us at least three years. Psychonauts took five, only sold half a million copies and we’re still in business. The quality of games matters more than people give it credit for.
We like to make things hard on ourselves. We like to try new things. I think it’s important that every time you do a game, you do something that’s the exact opposite of the last one you did. Full Throttle is very different than Day of the Tentacle, and Grim Fandango is very different than Full Throttle. Part of the fun of it is doing a complete 180 every time.”
Does that mean we’re not going to see a Grim Fandango 8?
Schafer: “I’ve toyed with that because I love those characters and that world. I would love to go back and spend time with the characters from any game I’ve worked on, and I would love to make a sequel to any of them. But I also want to make something new. If there were five of me I might make sequels, but there’s always some new idea I want to explore.”
What if you had the opportunity to farm out a sequel — not farm out in a negative sense, but…
Schafer: “Phone it in? Squeeze it out?”
If you could give the reins to someone you trusted to execute a Psychonauts sequel, where you had basic veto power and could do general shaping…
Schafer: “It just all depends on the person. If it was a team that I knew and trusted then, yeah, that would be great. The team that made Monkey Island 3 was not under our control at all. They were really clever, smart guys and they wrote really great dialogue so in that case it worked out great.”
Monkey Island (last seen in 2000), Day of the Tentacle (1993), Full Throttle (1995), Grim Fandango (1998), Psychonauts (2005). In a way Full Throttle’s biker theme gets another new game with Brutal Legend in development by Mr. Schafer for Xbox 360 & PS3. I’d personally love to see Grim Fandango 2 after that. If you had to choose between a sequel just one of these games, which would it be?
14 February 2008 12:38Louis Howe
I would LOVE to see a Grim Fandango 2!!! I have been dreaming of that since 1998!!!! 
16 September 2009 06:10Bosse
I really want there to be a Full Throttle 2.
But in the same style as the first one but with better graphics.
Maybe just a playstation store game.
But a Grim fandango 2 would also be great.
