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While many have anxiously awaited a sequel to Planescape: Torment, it's not the pipe dream it once was. Brian Fargo – the InXile Entertainment founder who has the Torment rights and once ran the original game's developer, Interplay – has said a successor is in the works, though there are a few caveats fans should consider.
For one, the sequel will ditch the Planescape setting for the Numenera role-playing system, the Kickstarter-funded brainchild of Monte Cook blending together sci-fi and fantasy elements to emphasize "story and ideas over mechanics." Cook should be a memorable name to those who played the Planescape pen-and-paper campaign setting, having helped design and write that series and numerous other games for Wizards of the Coast back in the day. "The more we explored the Numenera setting, the clearer it became that it's a natural fit for a Torment game," Fargo told Rock Paper Shotgun.
And with the new setting, Fargo suggests that this sequel will be less so in the literal sense and more so in the ideas Planescape: Torment presented to players. "Rather than overt links, we are trying to recapture the feeling that players experienced through PST –both while playing it and after having completed a playthrough. We will remain true to the essence of PST, but we'll also be looking for ways to improve the areas in which PST could have been even better."
The new Torment game is still a ways off, "very early" in the pre-production phases, Fargo says. "We have a basic story outline, design sketches of the major characters, and thematic concepts defined," Fargo said, adding that with Wasteland 2 in full production, InXile can't focus too great of resources to working on this new Torment game.
However, with writers and concept artists finished their early stages work on Wasteland 2, they're freed up. "There will be some other surprise talent that I'll announce later on but I thought it important to stress the heritage of the great team we have." As for funding this sequel, Fargo is unsurprisingly considering Kickstarter.
