Evan Wells: sequels are a good thing

It’s not very often that we see new IP at the head of the charts. Oftentimes, the games on top are the ones with numbers attached to their names. Surely, games don’t have to be sequels to be successful, but still, the fame of the name carries the game. It might be perceived as developers milking a popular franchise, or simply wanting to stick to their core IP. But if you ask Evan Wells, making sequels have advantages other than the aforementioned.

It’s not very often that we see new IP at the head of the charts. Oftentimes, the games on top are the ones with numbers attached to their names. Surely, games don’t have to be sequels to be successful, but still, the fame of the name carries the game. It might be perceived as developers milking a popular franchise, or simply wanting to stick to their core IP. But if you ask Evan Wells, making sequels have advantages other than the aforementioned.

Final Fantasy XIII, Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are a few among the many sequels we’ve seen on the headlines. Koei has a truckload of Dynasty Warriors, while Capcom has an innumerable stash of Mega Man titles. You get the idea.

“It is interesting,” said the Naughty Dog co-founder. “I think video games…I mean obviously, just now video games, because movies obviously do sequels as well. But I feel that, at least in the game industry, it seems the sequels fare much better than movie sequels.”

So I feel that because of the investment in the technology that it takes to make a video game, and especially when you are talking about consoles that change every five, six, seven years, developments are really kind of hitting their stride with their second iteration. So I see sequels as a good thing, because a lot of times sequels are actually the realization of the vision of the original game, but they just didn’t quite have time to put together.

That’s from a development perspective. As for the creative part, it’s pretty much the same, with the team having another shot at tapping more ideas. “That’s been great. So, I don’t know. I guess from my standpoint, sequels are good, because it does give developers a chance to really dig in and do what they wanted to do the first time,” Wells said, citing BioShock 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Modern Warfare 2 as great sequels he’s played recently.

Wells has also finished God of War III and loved it.

You can catch his full interview with Joystiq via the source below.

[via Joystiq]