South Park: The Fractured But Whole – Delays and Appealing to All Kinds of Fans
Twinfinite: What did the extra time with the delay allow you to do with South Park: The Fractured But Whole?
Schroeder: When it comes to that extra time, I think it was just to make sure that we made something that everyone was proud of. Like when we were first evaluating the original launch date, the amount of compromise that was going to be necessary was more than Ubisoft wanted to take, it was more than South Park was comfortable with. It was really an easy choice to just say if we want to make a game that everyone is proud of then we just need this time. You’ll see stuff that’s shown up, that’s just shown up in the last few months honestly, because they’re always writing and iterating. We built a pipeline that was trying to capture that same sort of iteration and ‘current’ energy.
Twinfinite: With Ubisoft lately, the company has had some big partnerships, like South Park and Mario+Rabbids. Going forward what do those partnerships mean for your team first of all, and Ubisoft as a whole?
Schroeder: For Ubisoft San Francisco it was, I think we approached the relationship with South Park with the humbleness of: this is a team that at that time had been working for nearly 20 years on a show, and we knew this is a team that has figured out how to work together, how to produce a show in six days, how to get the most out of a creative talent like Trey Parker. Rather than taking for granted that we that know how that works, we came into it with the humbleness of trying to learn from that, and this is what it means to be able to be great creators. I think everyone at our studio has had an opportunity to see what that creative process is like, and set the compromise that is required, to craft comedy into an interactive experience. I think you can take a lot of stuff for granted like in terms of ‘oh games are done in this order, you make your prototype, get to your alpha, this is how games get made,’ and a lot of those rules get thrown out when you’re trying to refine a joke. All the sudden cameras matter way more than, you know, the feel of movement.
Twinfinite: Do you think that South Park: The Fractured But Whole is a good place to start for people to kind of learn about the South Park series, if they aren’t fans of it?
Schroeder: [Laughs] Absolutely, if you don’t know South Park you’ll be able to just get into it and enjoy a unique game experience. I think if you don’t know games, and you know South Park, you can also come in and we’ll take you through how to play, and with our more casual combat challenge setting you’ll just be able to have fun and watch the kids pull of some crazy moves.
I think if you’ve never watched an episode of South Park, it’s probably going to be super shocking. [Laughs] I think those of us that have watched it for decades are just like oh yeah this is South Park, and you just accept a certain level of shock. I’ve had an opportunity over the last couple of years to have a few people that were unaware of what South Park really is or has become. Getting [them] to see the demos or see some stuff and just being like ‘oh my.’ Like, oh yeah sorry I kind thought you knew what you were getting into here.
Twinfinite: From here are there any kind of plans for follow up content or expansions for Fractured But Whole? Where does the team go from here?
Schroeder: We have a season pass that’s announced, like the show we’re gonna hold it close until we know exactly what episodes should be like. But we’re gonna keep trying to tell more superhero stories. There are a few jokes that are already kind of rolling around, and yeah everyone can look forward to some more.
Twinfinite: Any final thoughts?
Schroeder: I’m just really looking forward to everybody getting an opportunity to play what I think is the funniest game ever made. It’s a huge South Park story, just hours and hours of what I think is a relatively grown up South Park story.
