Warren Spector has confirmed that Epic Mickey 2 is in the works – and it’s a musical.
Despite his previous insistence that critics of Epic Mickey simply “misunderstood” the game, legendary designer Warren Spector now admits that he made a mistake keeping the characters silent in homage to the classic cartoons that inspired it. It’s a mistake he won’t repeat in the upcoming Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, and in fact he seems to be going in the completely opposite direction this time by making the game into a musical.
“I’m such a geek about musicals,” Spector told the Associated Press at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month. “I love the co-op and next-gen stuff, but for me, when a character breaks into song, which they do on a regular basis in this game, it’s magic.”
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an early Walt Disney character who was lost to a contract dispute in the 1920s and only returned to Disney’s control in 2006, will return to reprise his role from the original game, but this time around he’ll be a playable character. And even though he’s never before spoken a single word, he’ll be brought to life in Epic Mickey 2 provided by none other than famed voicemeister Frank Welker, better known as the voice of Megatron.
The new game will offer “drop-in, drop-out co-op” play, with Mickey still wielding his magical paint brush while Oswald has a remote control that can command electricity. “You can sit down at any time with a friend who is playing as Mickey, and you can take control of Oswald,” Spector explained. “If you’re playing as a single player, Oswald will be there every second of the game. He’s not just a multiplayer character. He’s a helper, whether you’re playing alone or with a friend or family member.”
Unlike the Wii-exclusive Epic Mickey, the follow-up will be a multi-platform release with versions for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well, and Spector said that the team has made a priority of correcting the camera problems that plagued the first game. “Our goal is that you will not have to touch the manual camera controls even once to play through the main story path of this game,” he said.
Epic Mickey 2 will see the mouse return to the Wasteland and while some areas will be familiar, earthquakes and other disasters have dramatically changed its appearance. Player choices will once again have an impact on events in the game, and the songs and music will also change depending on whether Mickey is “well-mannered or michievous.” The game is in development at Spector’s Junction Point Studios and is currently expected to come in the fall.
