Double Fine Boss Breaks Silence on 'Brütal Legend 2'

If you were hoping that a new Brütal Legend game was in the works now that Double Fine is independent again, Tim Schafer unfortunately confirmed that's not the case. Instead, Double Fine plans on focusing on smaller and weirder projects for now, although Schafer seems open to making a sequel someday.

During an August 21 appearance on Kinda Funny Games Daily, Schafer was directly asked "Brütal Legend 2 when?" by someone in the stream's chat. "We're not working on that now," Schafer said in response. "But maybe someday. I mean, there's a lot there to work with. But we just, right now, we're going to make a whole bunch of crazy little weird things."

Another chatter went on to point out that a new Brütal Legend game might be tough to make because heavy metal icons like Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister had died. Schafer seems to think that there's room to spotlight a new generation of artists in a sequel if Double Fine ever were to make it.

"Making Brütal Legend, there's all that stuff I loved in high school, and then making the game I found out a whole bunch of other bands and stuff that I never heard of. Since then, people approach me with metal bands, so I'm always like there's always new metal bands and new legends. We still have Rob Halford still with us and Lita Ford, but we did lose Ozzy and Lemmy. I really love that you can play Brütal Legend and see this really beautiful representation of those guys... It's like this little time capsule of these legends in their prime, in their element, and stuff. So there's just always new great people we could have in the game."

Schafer seems open to working on a sequel someday, even if he's transparent about the fact that no such project is currently in the works. Instead, Double Fine fans can look forward to updates for Kiln as well as the Amnesia Fortnight 2026 - Indie Reboot Kickstarter, which will fund a game jam and documentary, in the short term. One game made during that jam will even become an officially released game, potentially the first since Double Fine was spun off from Xbox Game Studios.

Double Fine was a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios between June 2019 and July 2026. It was one of five studios Xbox's new CEO Asha Sharma announced plans to divest from last month, writing on Xbox Wire at the time that "it is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio." Double Fine laid off 23 developers in the weeks that followed, but has now regained the rights to all of its IP and is charting a new path forward for itself.

As of now, that path does not imminently include Brütal Legend 2. If you want to play the original Brütal Legend, it's easily playable on PC or through its backward compatible Xbox 360 version on Xbox One and Xbox Series X. It's even still part of the Xbox Game Pass Premium catalog.