Planning For A Sequel

tim-cain game-development sequels dlc game-design production fallout arcanum outer-worlds

Abstract

Problem: If a new studio is building their first RPG with a brand new IP and hopes it might warrant a sequel, how should they lay groundwork without making the first game feel incomplete or forcing retcons later?

Approach: Tim Cain draws on personal experience across Fallout (no sequel planned), Arcanum (open to the idea), and The Outer Worlds (deliberately seeded from the start) to outline practical strategies.

Findings: There are two main approaches — non-deliberate (saving cut content) and deliberate (seeding lore, loose ends, and unexplored geography) — plus a critical third source: post-ship feedback from the team, reviewers, and players. All three also apply to DLC.

Key insight: Don't fill 100% of your sequel's development bandwidth with pre-planned ideas. Reserve 10–20% for post-ship discoveries — what your team wished they'd done, what reviewers called out, and what players are talking about on forums. This makes a better game and shows you're listening.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzY6sZWpGQQ

1. Three Personal Data Points

Tim frames his advice through three games where sequel planning was handled very differently:

  • Fallout — No sequel was planned. It was considered a "B-tier" game, and management wanted Tim off it and onto a D&D title as soon as it shipped. When a sequel was greenlit, they had to scramble.
  • Arcanum — The team was open to a sequel but didn't build the first game around one. When Sierra asked, they already had an idea: Journey to the Center of Arcanum, leveraging an interesting NPC from the base game, potentially first-person on Valve's Source engine.
  • The Outer Worlds — Tim and Leonard Boyarsky deliberately embedded sequel seeds into the lore from day one. Nothing specific was planned, but the worldbuilding contained numerous hooks that narrative and quest designers could naturally reference while building the first game.

2. Non-Deliberate Sequel Planning: The Cut Content List

Every game cuts content. Instead of discarding those ideas, keep a running list. Cut content falls into several categories:

  • Maps and areas that were designed but never built
  • Quest lines that worked on existing maps but couldn't be fully implemented (dialogue, playtesting, item placement, NPC state reactions)
  • NPCs cut because the game hit text/localization budget limits — e.g., a chatty character who only gave two side quests
  • System mechanics and features where design, code, art, or testing time ran out

None of this is wasted. It becomes a ready-made backlog for the sequel.

3. Deliberate Sequel Seeding

This is content you intentionally put into the first game to create natural sequel hooks:

  • Quests with unresolved mysteries — The quest itself resolves (you retrieved the item, returned it to its owner), but the deeper "why" remains unanswered. There's a hint of something bigger, but the player never learns what.
  • Story lines with loose ends — Not cliffhangers, but threads that aren't fully tied up. You caught the murderer, but the motive remains unknown.
  • Unexplored geography — Visible mountains in the skybox you can't visit. Neighboring countries on the world map. Star systems you never travel to. These create natural expansion points.
  • Lore depth — Factions, historical figures, legendary items, and events that are referenced but never fully explored. Who made this artifact? Why is it important? What was the great battle people keep mentioning?
  • Foreshadowed events — Wars brewing, political shifts coming in a few years, things that predate or postdate the game's timeline. These provide sequel settings without making the current game feel incomplete.

4. Post-Ship Ideas: Reserve 10–20% Bandwidth

Tim's strongest advice, especially for new teams: don't fill the sequel's entire development schedule with pre-planned features. Save capacity for ideas that only emerge after the first game ships. These come from three sources:

  • The development team — "I wish we'd had grenades with visible arcs" or "I wish we'd built a grenade launcher." The team knows best what they ran out of time for.
  • Reviews — If 40 out of 50 reviews note the lack of parkour, climbing, or puzzles, that's a clear signal.
  • Player forums — Trends emerge where players discuss features they wanted or loose ends they wish had been resolved.

Acting on post-ship feedback shows developers, reviewers, and players that you're listening — which is valuable in itself.

5. DLC vs. Sequel

Everything above applies equally to DLC, with one key difference: DLC must connect to the base game. It plugs into existing maps and fits somewhere in the existing storyline, even if it's optional. This constraint is actually a creative advantage — it forces focus and narrows scope, which often produces tighter, better content. Sequels don't have that restriction, which gives more freedom but risks diffusion. As Tim puts it: "If a game could be about anything, it's frequently about nothing."

6. References