Welcome back to the PC Gamer Q&A. Every week, we ask our panel of PC Gamer writers a question about PC gaming, then invite you to participate in the comments. This week: if you could play a sequel to any game, what would it be?
Andy Chalk: Night of the Rabbit
It's probably my favourite Daedalic adventure, and I really thought that the sweeping forest fairy tale, tinged with just enough darkness to keep things interesting, had set the stage for something bigger. (It even included an obvious sequel hook in the grand finale wrap-up.) Sure, it wasn't perfect—the ending segment in particular was very weak—but it is a perfect world for more stories. It's a damn shame that it didn't get at least one more shot at a breakthrough. I mean, Deponia was a trilogy! So how did Night of the Rabbit end up relegated to a one-and-done? Get it together, Daedalic.
Austin Wood: Vanquish
I've wanted to play more Vanquish for years, but I didn't need to until I played the recent PC port. It looks and feels so good on PC that it would be a shame to never see more. The slow-motion shooting and sliding are effortless with a mouse, and the port's increased frame rate really got them to sing. My mouth waters at the thought of what Platinum could do with a sequel built with PC in mind.
Chris Livingston: F.E.A.R
While I was looking at footage of F.E.A.R. for my collection of the best, most kick-ass kicks in PC games, I was thinking, huh: I really want to play a new sequel to F.E.A.R. The developer, Monolith, is still around cranking out Lord of the Rings games, but I'd love to see them renew the FPS that felt pretty ahead of its time in 2005 with it's full body modeling and bullet time effects. Plus, it was genuinely scary (also, as I said, it had awesome kicking).
Campaign-based singleplayer FPS games aren't as common as they used to be—and I rarely even play the ones that do come out—but I'd be into a new F.E.A.R. with updated visuals and effects and sound. They're welcome to bring Alma back, too—the creepy little girl horror trope is pretty well played out, but I could handle a bit more if it meant I could do some slow-motion flying kicks through clouds of shrapnel and smoke. I wouldn't even grouse about having to spell the title in all caps with periods in between the letters. And I hate doing that. Just ask Stalker.
Jarred Walton: Neuromancer
This is so old that I fear I may be one of the few that even remembers the game Neuromancer, which I played on C64 back in the late 80s—you can still run the PC version, thanks to the Internet Archive, though you really should listen to the Devo original for the intro music. Anyway, I loved the game, and the book, and the world needs more cyberpunk games. The Deus Ex series is good, and I enjoyed Shadowrun, but I'd like something that focuses a bit more on the cyberspace/matrix/hacking side of things. We also need games that remember the 'punk' aspect of the genre. Do I even need to mention how much I'm looking forward to CDPR's Cyberpunk 2077?
Tim Clark: Final Fantasy Tactics 2
My short but sweet answer is Final Fantasy Tactics 2. The original turn-based RPG battler is in my top five games of all time, but criminally has yet to be ported to PC, despite Wes Fenlon's attempts to bully Square Enix into rectifying that situation. Ugh, imagine how amazing it would be to play a brand new Tactics on your laptop during a long flight. I would burn every other Final Fantasy in a pit for one more Tactics installment. Don't @ me, Samuel.
Evan Lahti: Overcooked
Don't fret, Tim. In the meantime you can 'console' yourself with this 63-track collaborative tribute to FFT's soundtrack.
I'm a simple man with semi-realistic needs: I want a second helping of Overcooked. I don't think we've had more fun with a local multiplayer game here in the PCG US office, although Nidhogg 2 was great too. Food is a novel theme for a co-op game, and within that, Overcooked mixes total calamity, creative problem solving, and multiple degrees of success. Of the ways Overcooked could be expanded upon—online multiplayer is the obvious one, but level editing and sharing would extend its life tremendously. Honestly I'd accept any imitation of this style of "cooperative assembly line" game. Hopefully we'll see another one before too long; I realize there aren't a ton of us who have three or four PC-compatible controllers lying around and a couch facing our PC. One of Valve's business people seems to agree that it's "exceptionally hard" to make money off this genre.
Jody Macgregor: Planescape: Torment
I know we already had a spiritual sequel in Torment: Tides of Numenera, but the story of a potential follow-up by Beamdog (which they quickly kiboshed) got my hopes up for a direct sequel. Though the endings leave room for more things to happen to The Nameless One I'd be happy with new characters in the same setting—that setting being Sigil, the city built on the inner surface of a giant floating donut-shaped object. Exploring Sigil from an isometric perspective was great, but I want a modern sequel that, like Dragon Age Origins, lets you switch to a viewpoint where you can point the camera up. I want to gawp at the rooftops and streets hanging over my head.
Samuel Roberts: Fallout: New Vegas
Just today I was looking at the total number of downloads for Fallout: New Vegas mods on Nexus: 201 million. Holy shit, people like that game. While I enjoyed Fallout 4, you can never really have too much Fallout, and I'd love to see Obsidian take another stab at bringing this universe to life. It's more than likely Bethesda Game Studios is working on the next Elder Scrolls right now anyway—who wouldn't love another Fallout with a slightly different take in the meantime? Maybe with more interesting clashes of factions, driven by player choice?
If not that, then I would love to see a sequel to Rockstar's Bully, which seemed like it was on the cards a long time ago. It remains a personal favourite of mine.
But what about you, kind reader? Let us know below.
