An Arcanum Sequel? - Leonard Boyarsky

In the June Issue of PC Powerplay (Australia), they just reviewed Arcanum in "The Vault", the review comprising for the most part, a lengthy interview with Leonard Boyarsky... the last paragraph may interest patrons here:

Writer:

"Now that Troika's kaput, we probably won't be seeing Arcanum again. But it might help assuage our grief to discover whether a sequel was ever actually planned. So ... was one? You betcha."

Boyarsky:

"We had actually started preproduction on a sequel using the Source engine, which eventually led to us making Vampire: Bloodlines. But there was quite a bit of turmoil on at Sierra at the time, and it got shelved before it got too far. It had a great premise, and was certain to be bug free! It was going to be called 'Journey to the Center of Arcanum'."

I posted this here, because I have no idea if it would be relevant to post it in the Mystary! forums, but there you have it, Boyarsky claims it was in development... the whole article is really rather good and urges people to pick up the game. If you can somehow get a copy of the mag, or even find the article somehow, I can recommend it.

 

What do you hope to accomplish by taunting us with the ghosts of things that will never be?

-Sobs quietly in a corner-

 

Ladies and gentlemen; if you please; a moment of silence for the unborn child of Arcanum.

 

Unborn? It says right in Thrond's post that it was aborted (shelved). Aborted! Wire hangar and all. Curse you, cruel fate!

 

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We can all take solace in the fact that when he says it was "Certain to be bug free" he probably meant that it was certain to be bug free in an ideal world, without production deadlines et al.

 

Well it's technically impossible to have a real computer game be bug free. So...yeah, I'll take that.

 

This is.. depressing... Why, goddammit? Why did Troika have to bloody die on us when the sequel was so close?

 

I suspect you'd do better showing them a large box of gold....

 

Thay've got enough of that. Gold. Send them the H-box and I'm sure that the sequel will be made.

 

I'm sorry - "H-Box"????

 

"Hand-Box" ie, the Box of Hands.

 

O K ......

It was only obvious..... Appearently I needed blantantly obvious.

 

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I like my obvious blantant myself. It's the only way to take it after all.

It is a bit depressing to hear that they had to shelve it, and I imagine a sequel ON the Valve engine, (first / 3rd person) a la Bloodlines would have been quite exciting, but I'm sure implementing the magic/tech would have been more difficult given the need to make absolutely loads of models for equipment. Though I can imagine it would have looked magnificent... infact, I might go and mentally regress to that happy place of running around a completely 3D Tarant in First Person with an Elephant gun.... a man can dream.

Also, just re-reading the article in my copy of PCPP, "Journey to the Center of Arcanum"? I originally thought that Boyarsky may have been being glib with that name, it just doesn't seem .. Arcanum-esque. What say you?

 

Yes and no. The title does seem rather glib but no worse than others I've heard. On the other hand.....

The title stirs a rejected idea for the "GRAND MOD" that I'll try to build someday.

Thumbnail Scenario: You take a trip to the Void, discover that the islands are actually chunks of a "man-made" realm that had originally been created as a massive terraforming project (Shades of Sim-Earth) in a time long before the Age of Legends, and the constant use of magic by the current occupants of Arcanum is tearing the place apart. If the continent finishes coming apart, Arcanum is threatened with the same fate.

Perhaps something along this line.......

 

Journey to the Center of Arcanum sounds like Journey to the Center of the Earth. Probably dinosaur-like monsters in a 19th centrury setting, complete with aboriginal tribesmen and new magic, and, probably "new" technology. It must be weird trying to do the first person thing from the eye level of a halfling.

 

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On the downside, you'd be talking to more groins than faces, but if it were in Madam Lil's would that be such a huge problem?

 

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Well, we're talking about the Victorian age...so, I'd be more comfortable as a short human, or tall dwarf, i.e. chest level.

 

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That I can sir, I'll try and scan them to my photobucket as soon as possible. It's a 4 page spread.