page_title: South Park: The Stick of Truth
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: South Park: The Stick of Truth / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: E3 Expo 2012 (Microsoft Press Event). Matt Stone and Trey Parker talking about South Park: The Stick of Truth.
context_page_description: South Park: The Stick of Truth is a 2014 role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment in collaboration with South Park Digital Studios and published by Ubisoft. Based on the American adult animated television series South Park, the game follows the New Kid, who has moved to the eponymous town and becomes involved in an epic role-play fantasy war involving humans, wizards, and elves, who are fighting for control of the all-powerful Stick of Truth. Their game quickly escalates out of control and brings them into conflict with aliens, Nazi zombies, and gnomes, threatening the entire town with destruction.
  The game is played from a 2.5D, third-person perspective replicating the aesthetic of the television series. The New Kid is able to freely explore the town of South Park, interacting with characters and undertaking quests, and accessing new areas by progressing through the main story. Selecting one of four character archetypes, Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Jew, each offering specific abilities, the New Kid and a supporting party of characters use a variety of melee, ranged, and magical fart attacks to combat with their enemies.
context_section_description: Development of South Park: The Stick of Truth took four years, beginning in 2009 when South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone contacted Obsidian Entertainment to discuss their desire to make a South Park game. Parker, a fan of Obsidian games, including Fallout: New Vegas (2010), wanted to create a role-playing game, a genre which he and Stone had enjoyed since their childhoods. Parker and Stone insisted that the game must replicate the show's visual style. Parker's original concept was for a South Park version of the 2011 role-playing fantasy game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and he estimated the first script he produced to be 500 pages long. The South Park Digital Studios team animated a concept of the game's opening scene to show what they wanted to accomplish with Obsidian in terms of appearance and gameplay mechanics. While the series had inspired several licensed games, such as South Park (1998) and South Park Rally (1999), Parker and Stone were not involved in these games' development and later criticized the titles' quality. Negative reaction to those games made the pair protective of their property and led to their greater involvement on The Stick of Truth; they refused several requests to license the series for new ventures.
  Stone and Parker worked closely with Obsidian on the project, sometimes having two-to-three hour meetings over four consecutive days. They worked with Obsidian until two weeks before the game was shipped. Their involvement extended beyond creative input; their company initially financed the game, believing that a game based on the controversial television show would struggle to receive financial support from publishers without them placing restrictions on the content to make it more marketable. The initial funding was intended to allow Obsidian to develop enough of the game to show a more complete concept to potential publishers. In December 2011, THQ announced that they would work with Obsidian on South Park: The Game, as it was then known. This partnership developed into a publishing arrangement after South Park owner Viacom, having grown wary of video games, cut its funding. Obsidian was aware when it signed with THQ that the latter was experiencing financial difficulties.
  In March 2012, Microsoft canceled Obsidian's upcoming Xbox One project codenamed "North Carolina" after seven months of development, resulting in the layoff of between 20 and 30 employees, including members of the Stick of Truth team. In May 2012, the game's final title was announced. In December 2012, THQ filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy after suffering several product release failures. The Stick of Truth remained on schedule as THQ tried to use the bankruptcy period to restructure and return its business to profit, but the company failed to find a buyer and a Delaware court ordered that THQ was worth more if its assets were sold individually.
  The rights to The Stick of Truth were auctioned in late December 2012; Obsidian was not made aware of the sale until the auction was announced. South Park Digital Studios filed an objection to the auction, stating that THQ did not have the authority to sell the publishing rights and that THQ had been granted exclusive use of specific South Park trademarks and copyrights. South Park Digital also argued that even if the rights were sold, THQ would still owe them US$2.27 million and that they held the option of reclaiming all elements of the game and South Park related creations. THQ requested that the court overrule South Park Digital, stating that their rights were exclusive and thus transferable. On January 24, 2013, the United States bankruptcy court approved the sale of THQ's assets, including The Stick of Truth.
  The rights were bought by Ubisoft for US$3.2 million. Within three weeks they had decided that the game required significant changes, pushing its release date back by six months to March 2014. Parker and Stone, with input from a Ubisoft creative consultant, concluded that their original vision would take too long and would be too costly to produce. In a 2014 i
caption: South Park creators Trey Parker (left) and Matt Stone discussing the game during Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012. The pair were directly involved with the development of The Stick of Truth to maintain the authenticity of the show.
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