McFarlane: "Word of mouth" buzz needed for Amalur sequel

Todd McFarlane, Spawn artist and art lead on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, has said a social buzz is needed around the just-released RPG if it's to sell well enough to open up possibilities of developing a sequel.

The game, which released in the US yesterday and will hit Europe on Friday, is a new IP and the first game from Curt Schilling's 38 Studios.

Speaking to Gama, McFarlane said: "There are some surprises in it. If we delivered enough of them, maybe they'll phone up their buddy and go, 'Hey, Fred, I just played this game and you've got to see it. It's kind of cool, man.'

"If we can get that word of mouth going, then there's a big potential for us to succeed and maybe have a sequel come out someday."

It's McFarlane's first game, but he's found the experience a positive one. The artist added that RPG development is a "communist" mentality, where no user can be deemed more important than another.

"If you ask ten different RPG players why they play those games, you will invariably get ten different answers," he said.

"How do you develop for that? The only way to do that is to treat each one of those areas equally and with the same preciousness as you would any other area. You can't pick favorites. You literally have to become a communist developer, treating them all as equals."

The epic role-player, which provides hundreds of hours of single-play, is tracking at 80% on 360, 83% on PS3 and 88% on PC.

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