Tim Schafer says he “definitely” wants to do more DLC and tuning patches for Brütal Legend, including new single-player content, that he’s happy with how the game has performed and that he thinks modern metal sucks.
It’s been a couple months since Brütal Legend hit the shelves and while sales appear to be a bit on the soft side, Schafer expressed satisfaction with the game’s reception in a recent interview with GamePro, saying he was “for the most part very happy” with the response to the game based on feedback he’s been given while playing. “We’re online with our headsets battling, and they’re telling me exactly what they think about the game and it’s a whole new experience for me,” he said. “It’s really fun to be playing on a team with other players swapping strategies and going head-to-head with people who are better than me at my own game.”
As far as actual sales go, however, he admitted that he hasn’t looked at the numbers yet. “I don’t look at those things for awhile; I like to give it time, you know? I think many people look too soon but a lot of games I’ve worked on have succeeded based on word of mouth,” he continued. “With Brütal Legend’s multiplayer, people need to play it and talk about it, so I usually don’t look at the sales number for a month or so. Definitely not ’til after Christmas.”
He also implied that while the game hasn’t been a runaway hit, more is on the way. “We definitely want to do more DLC for both single-player and multiplayer, as well as some tuning patches,” he said.
And in case you’re wondering why Brütal Legend didn’t feature more modern metal, Schafer has a ready answer. “You mean besides it sucking? Mostly it’s because I wanted to get all my favorite songs in there, which were all from my formative years of my metal experience, about 1982 to 1985,” he said. But he also pointed out that some newer metal did make the cut. “We also had some of the newer Motorhead tracks. We didn’t just use ‘Ace of Spades.’ We also had bands like Three Inches of Blood and other new bands, but it’s mostly just the music I was most familiar with. Plus, there was just a lot more great old stuff to choose from. The older stuff had the feel I was going for — it fit Eddie’s character as a man out of place in his own time.”
