During Ubisoft’s conference at E3 2016, the public was shown a first look at the sequel for South Park: The Stick of Truth. Titled “The Fractured But Whole”, this sequel seeks to change a few things from its predecessor.
Besides giving the combat system a more tactical vibe with grids and such, one of the biggest changes to come is giving the player a choice as to what their character’s gender shall be. This gender choice was not available in The Stick of Truth and drew some criticism from certain parts of the gaming community.
Learning from the public’s words, South Park’s writers Trey Parker and Matt Stone took the criticism under advisement and felt it appropriate to include a female gender option. What’s more, creating a female character won’t produce the same occurrences as a male character would when dealing with the raunchy South Park locals such as Cartman, Kyle and many others.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Matt Stone had this to say about The Stick of Truth and its sequel:
“In Stick of Truth we got halfway through the game, and we had narratively come up with the big Girls’ Quest halfway through it. [The Girls] were a faction in the fantasy world. And then someone’s like, “What if you want to be a girl?” Narratively, it didn’t work. We’d have to sh– can the whole game. So we just left it the way it was. This time, we obviously wanted to add that.
But the boys are little boys, because it’s really a story about little boys running around. So they don’t care about [your character being a girl]? That seems weird. They always seemed to care about it in the show. Are they dumb about it, and they don’t know? So you’re in hiding? Or do they totally care about that, and totally treat you differently? So we ended up doing those things differently for different characters.
It actually turned out to be quite a bit more work. I’m also playing The Division – I’m not just saying that because it’s Ubisoft. I made the character look like my wife, just because I thought that was funny, running around New York shooting people looking like my wife. But the game doesn’t treat you that differently. The guys still shoot you. The game doesn’t really react that much differently. That’s cool for that kind of game. It’s been a funny journey to go through, introducing something that we thought would just be a cool feature. You’re a girl! But now they’re going to treat you different.”
With the creators of South Park providing the writing for The Fractured But Whole, there’s little to fear about how well the game will mimic the show’s dark humor. In fact, reception to The Stick of Truth was very good.
Those who pre-order South Park: The Fractured But Whole will also the remastered version of The Stick of Truth as well, completely free of charge.
The Fractured But Whole farts its way towards PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC systems on December 5th, 2016.
Source: Kotaku
