Planescape license up for grabs, says Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast has said it would "absolutely consider" licensing its Planescape Dungeons & Dragons setting, despite suggestions from InXile that the publisher had shut down negotiations.
"We would absolutely consider licensing out Planescape, or any of our other great D&D IPs, if we were approached with a proposal. We often get proposals and are actively pursuing opportunities to make great digital D&D experiences," Wizards of the Coast told Eurogamer.
"Brian [Fargo] suggested Baldur's Gate 3 had proven difficult in the past before we regained our digital rights, so, that probably didn't help the situation," the unnamed representative added, somewhat mysteriously.
InXile's Colin McComb, one of the lead designers of Planescape: Torment and an important part of the Torment: Tides of Numenera team, seemed a bit surprised by this version of the story.
"I'm certain that there was discussion on the subject directly but it sounds like there is some internal miscommunication there," he said.
Torment: Tides of Numenera is a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, which was put together by Black Isle Studios. Many of its developers are now at InXile, and according to comments made both before and at the reveal of Torment: Tides of Numenera, the developer had attempted to secure the Planescape license and been turned away.
Sticking with the Torment part of the title, InXile settled on a new role-playing setting, Numenera, which was designed by one of the Planescape setting's core designers, who will be working with InXile on the new game.
InXile doesn't seem too worried about it; both McComb and original designer Chris Avellone had said in the past that they wanted to bring forth the spirirt of Planescape: Torment, but not necessarily make a direct sequel or even keep the same mechanics.
"Since we were already looking at Numenera as a potential setting, this made our decision easy," McComb said of the apparent rejection from Wizards of the Coast.
"We're genuinely excited about Numenera anyway - it's a setting as different as Planescape was, one that breaks the mould of computer role-playing settings, and it's got mechanics that are intuitive, easy, and deep. We've got a very cool story coming along as well."