A LittleBigPlanet 2 sequel is already in the works! No surprise there. With the already guaranteed critical and sales success of Sony’s new flagship PlayStation 3 platformer, LittleBigPlanet, it would be completely crazy of developer Media Molecule to not already be thinking about what they are going to do for the next game in the inevitable franchise.
According to the BBC UK in an interview with Alex Evans and the rest of the team at Media Molecule, “Even before the game has hit the shops, the team are already at work on a sequel.” It goes on to say, “LittleBigPlanet has big potential. Right now it is just a game but the firm, with Sony, are in talks to turn it into a franchise that could mean spin offs including comics, cartoons, and action figures as well as a publishing platform itself for other brands’ content.”
Which jives well with some previous Media Molecule interviews in which talks of the future, and an inevitable sequel, have come up.
Update July 2009: Media Molecule boss Alex Evans had something new to say about Little Big Planet 2. To quote: “I’d love there to be a sequel, put it that way. But that’s not an announcement – although I will say that the entire team is working on LBP.”
But it only makes complete sense if you ask me. And not just the part about a video game follow-up and Downloadable Content (which is a no-brainer), but also the part about additional brands in other industries, like comic books, cartoons, action figures and . . . what I want to see most, plushies! The LittleBigPlanet characters really beg for this stuff due to their uber-cuteness and mass-market family-friendly appeal. Heck, I’d buy one with no questions asked.
My only worry will be if they saturate the market with LittleBigPlanet-related things and it loses it’s appeal. But hey, Viva Pinata did it, even the cartoon part, and yet I don’t see it hurting that brand. And lets not even get into Pokemon . . . So I definitely see Sony going this route, especially since Sony now has a big kid-friendly brand, something they lacked previously, to compete with the likes of Viva Pinata from Microsoft and Pokemon from Nintendo. Let the cute wars roll on!
Media Molecule co-founders Kareem Ettouney and Mark Healy were asked about Little Big Planet 2 on disc: