Company News Wizards of the Coast say the Planescape setting is available for licensing

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Tags: InXile Entertainment; Obsidian Entertainment; Planescape; Project Eternity; Torment: Tides of Numenera; Wizards of the Coast

Eurogamer's Robert Purchese has done some research on the matter of the Planescape license. He reports:

For months I believed Wizards of the Coast had, for whatever reason, declined use of the Planescape Dungeons & Dragons licence for another video game.

Colin McComb, key member of the Planescape: Torment team, reached out to Wizards of the Coast about reviving Planescape: Torment game. But it "yielded no fruit", he told me.

Brian Fargo, inXile boss, was "rebuffed" by Wizards of the Coast when he asked the same sort of thing.

With Planescape apparently off the table, Fargo contented himself with the Torment IP and hired Colin McComb to make a Torment-like successor but built on a different, new, role-playing system called Numenera. The game's called Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Planescape being off the table may have also affected Obsidian's decision to Kickstart a new IP in Project Eternity rather than pursue something Planescape.

It turns out, however, Wizards of the Coast wasn't against the idea of licensing Planescape at all - or so it told me.

"We would absolutely consider licensing out Planescape, or any of our other great D&D IPs, if we were approached with a proposal," Wizards of the Coast told us through its presumably bushy beard.

"We often get proposals and are actively pursuing opportunities to make great digital D&D experiences.

"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."

Of course, it's too late now for this to change anything, since both inXile and Obsidian are committed to other settings. Furthermore, as the article shows, neither of them really wanted to license a D&D setting anyway.

So, will somebody else step up and license the Planescape setting? In before Overhaul Games' Planescape: Trentment.

Planescape: Origins, the story of Lady of Pain, by BioWare.

Can't wait to be covered in blood and grabbing collars for renegade points.

Time to make dreams come true:

Slap yourself in the cheeks, if you would. That sounds too entirely Biowarean for my taste.

You guys are too quick with the trigger.

Fuck you.

A tragic tale of a homosexual female in a harsh patriarchal world of male (and subservient heterosexual female) gods.

How can a bunch of weasels be homosexual?

Why does a troglodyte wear a hat? This, and many other questions will be revealed in the epic tale of the Lady.

Young Lady of Pain will be voiced by Felicia Day, older Lady of Pain by Jennifer Hale.

Overhaul did do a port for Interplay, with MDK2. So why not merge Overhaul into BIS, combine the genius of Trent Oster and whoever is still at Interplay now, and make a direct PS:T sequel, since all the IP things (characters and locations) are Hasbro's too. Call it Planescape: Anguish, the continued travails of TNO. Nothing's stopping them.

Yeah. Licensing big products for Kickstarter projects never made much sense to me as an idea. The license kills the freedom Kickstarter implies.

let's get a planescape mmo

Planescape: Teenage Angst.

Time for a new Codex fundraiser, eh lads? Tactical denial of resources to popamole competition.

And she will be day one DLC.
"Lady of Pain as additional companion, purchase The Blade Romancer DLC now! Feel love like never before! Only in Origin"

Ah, not quite. She will be day-1 DLC, but she's not an additional companion. She's the protagonist. BioWare's fresh new foray into innovation of the genre! Play without the protagonist if you wish, or buy the optional content for $19.99!

Buy? Rent, for 19.99/week.

Also: Hello, St. Toxic

Too bad BI already spent all the cash they got from their fundraiser on a forum. Now we'll have to make a codex one to lend them money.

An F2P episodic adventure with premium sub-based content?! I think we're on to some proper next-gen industry gold here, comrade.

Shame that the rights management nonsense is such a convoluted mess when trying to get things from the P&P space and such happening otherwise---though at least Planescape is in less of a limbo than the likes of Birthright, as I think the latter recently had some sort of relevant "lapse" and now reverts to god knows who to sit on.