Planescape: Torment – Sequel, Spin Off, Start Over, or Stay Dead?

In a new feature entitled “Sequel, Spin Off, Start Over, or Stay Dead?”, the editors at Diehard GameFAN have each weighed in on what sort of future (if any) they’d like to see for Black Isle’s Planescape: Torment. They ultimately decide that it should “stay dead” for a number of reasons:

As happy as I am that the game was re-released to run on modern systems, there’s no way in hell I want to see this game being remade as Black Isle Studios is sadly long dead. I also don’t want to see a sequel, simply because without Black Isle, there is no way it could measure up. Now, a sequel is possible as The Nameless One would now be fighting in the Blood War, but again, without the original team, a sequel would only sully the good name of the original. A spin-off also isn’t that possible because Planescape itself is a spin-off of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which no longer exists.

The real reason I want Planescape: Torment to stay dead save for the occasional OS update is because I have no faith in Wizards of the Coast. Not only did they completely bury the Planescape setting once they got their grubby mitts on the rights to Dungeons and Dragons but they have been absolute idiots with the franchise, from an unbelievable score of atrocious D&D themed games based on the 3.0 or 3.5 edition of the tabletop game to burying the most popular variants of D&D such as Dragonlance, Ravenloft and Planescape in favour of their own god awful creation of Eberron. They allowed horrible movies to be made with the license’s name included two horrible live-action films and a god awful Dragonlance animated movie. The only thing that WOTC has done right since buying Dungeons and Dragons from TSR was the miniatures game, which they then stupidly stopped making at the height of its popularity. Wizards of the Coast has shown absolutely no intelligence or respect for the D&D franchise, which can be seen even to this day with 4th edition and the termination of the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. The thought of WOTC doing a 4th edition version of Planescape: Torment disgusts me to no end and I hope someday Hasbro cracks down on their inept asses and puts people in charge that can do the license proud and restore it to its 2nd Edition/SSI golden era.

While I agree that Wizards of the Coast probably wouldn’t have any idea how to do a sequel justice, I think the main problem is that a game like Planescape: Torment wouldn’t work in the modern age unless it was developed independently by a talented group of people who are willing to accept the fact that it’s not going to be hugely profitable.

With that said, though, I think a modernized remake would be viable. Sprinkle in some more side quests, a few more locations, another character or two, additional voiceovers, and an updated graphics engine, and I’ll happily pay full price again.