A new South Park video game looks to be on the way from former BioShock developers.
Revealed in a job advert by indie developer Question, the studio’s looking for a lead level designer to contribute to “a new video game set in the world of South Park”. While few specifics are given and the game remains unnamed, the jobs post does mention candidates must have experience with “multiplayer level design”, and will contribute to creating “levels choc full of aesthetically compelling moments and interesting tactical choices”.
Question is a little-known studio, but its website notes that it includes former developers of the BioShock series, Dishonored, and Thief: Deadly Shadows, as well as those who worked on Obsidian’s 2014 South Park RPG, The Stick of Truth, and Ubisoft's 2017 follow-up Fractured But Whole.
Both its co-founders, Stephen Alexander and Jordan Thomas, previously contributed to BioShock and BioShock Infinite, with Thomas also serving as creative director at 2K Marin during the studio's development of BioShock 2.
The post suggests the game will be coming to the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC, and mentions it will be built in the Unreal 4 engine.
Question is best known for releasing The Magic Circle in 2015, a self-styled darkly comedic, surrealist first-person game that plonks you inside an unfinished fantasy world that’s stuck in development hell. Most recently, it developed co-op horror game The Blackout Club, which has you and your pals investigate the monstrous happenings of a backwater town.
Analysis: a South Park immersive sim?
Unlike many licensed video games, South Park has had remarkable success with its gaming adaptations. Obsidian’s RPG, The Stick of Truth, was warmly received for not only capturing the TV show’s trademark crude humor, but neatly wrapping it inside a solid turn-based combat system and exploration segments.
This title from Question has a lot to live up to, then, although the talent within the studio puts it on good footing. It might be a little too much to expect the team to pool their BioShock, Dishonored and Thief experience to create a South Park immersive sim (and probably too weird a thought), but the name drops alone are tantalizing. Obsidian's South Park games did brilliantly because of the experience of the team behind them. The same could happen here.
However, the game also marks a few firsts for the license. For starters, it will be the first South Park game to release on the current console generation. Fractured But Whole, the last major release that used the license, came out several years before the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S hit the market. But it’s also the first South Park video game to be developed by a small, indie studio. Up to now, its game adaptations have been created by, or in partnership with, larger developers.
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