Epic Mickey creator Warren Spector has told Games Industry that hypothetically if he was developing a the sequel to Epic Mickey 2 the game would be on multiple platforms, would feature cooperative play, feature voice acting, and would have a much better camera. We already know that Spector is developing Epic Mickey 2, and it should be revealed in the coming weeks to the general public.
Q: Okay. So I’m sure there are things, though, that you would have liked to have included or to improve upon, and I know you haven’t officially announced anything, but most people are assuming that it’s coming. So for the hypothetical sequel that may or may not happen, what things would you like to improve upon for Epic Mickey?
Warren Spector: With Mickey 1, we built a team – we went from 13 people to about 180. We built a studio, we built a tech base, we built a world… we did about everything you can do wrong in video game development. We tried to do everything at once. And so I’m really proud of the first Epic Mickey game. If I were to do it again, there are clearly things that we had to cut and things we could have done better. The number one thing I get asked is, “Why can’t I play this on my platform, damn it?” So if I were to do another one – now that we’ve reintroduced Mickey as a video game hero on the right platform, which was the Wii – I think we’ve got other people intrigued. There are now more PS3s and 360s in sort of “family hands,” let’s put it that way. So I think the time would be right to get the game on other platforms.
The second thing I get asked is “you made a game that appeals to adults and kids equally,” which is true by the way and was one of our goals, so “Why can’t I play together? Why can’t I play with my son and why can’t I play with my mother? Why I can’t play with my friends?” So, I would probably do co-op. I would definitely address player concerns about the camera. That was the number one complaint we heard, but I will defend to the death the quality of the work my camera team did on that first game; there is a whole GDC talk about that sometime, too. The camera in the first game was an amazing piece of work that people don’t appreciate. We took the hardest problem in gaming and then made it even harder through our game mechanics – which people don’t get – but we know we could do better. And so I would do that and I would do full voice. I mean I made a decision on the first game not to have characters speak. It was a mistake and I would fix that.
Q: Maybe Nintendo will take you up on that advice for Zelda…
Warren Spector: No that’s exactly why – There are two reasons why I didn’t do full voice. I mean the one is Oswald’s a silent film star, and if he can’t talk no one will. I thought that was funny. And I wanted not just to honor Disney history, but I wanted to honor the Zelda games, the Mario games, the Japanese RPGs that I love, none of which use full voice. But what I didn’t think through was these are Disney characters. No one expects Mario to talk, no one expects Link to talk. Everyone expects Mickey, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, the Mad Doctor… everybody expects those guys to talk and I let them down. So, we are going to fix that if we have ever do another game.
