Part 35: BONUS - What Could Have Been

So, with DoubleNegative's permission I'd like to talk a bit about the game's history which took place over 4 years from concept to finished product. During the middle of development Microsoft canceled a high profile project with Obsidian which resulted in laying off 30 staff members who were also working on the game. A few months later THQ went under and South Park Studios tried outright to buy the rights but THQ won a court case and sold development to Ubisoft. Ubisoft saw that the project was in no condition to publish and ultimately delayed the game for almost a year. There was a lot of doom and gloom but it was probably a blessing in disguise. Ubisoft outright stated it wasn't finished and Obsidian's opinion post-launch supports that. THQ likely wanted a quick buck in early 2013 knowing they'd probably go under and I don't think this game would've been as highly revered had it come out that year.

Perhaps more so than any high profile video game, The Stick of Truth has a lot of content that was heavily advertised up front yet didn't make the final version. I'd like to show you some of that and maybe appreciate how it was a miracle this game was finished at all.



The original script was something like 500 pages. We may never know what was contained in those pages but concept art paints a different story than Nazi zombies.







It seems a portion of the game would've involved a war between Crab People and Underpants Gnomes. While there is a scene with the gnomes you only see a single crab person and they provide no mechanical benefit.



Early screenshots show combat involving crab people and they're still in the promotional videos.



Christmas Town was a planned level where Mr. Hankey and Santa Claus lived. Feargus Urqhuart, Obsidian's CEO, has said it was an example of them just going for too much. It seems like Canada was a late edition to the game and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a quick fill in for Christmas Town.







It looks like factions would've played a larger role in the game. Wendy and other girls can be seen fighting alongside the boys, there was to be a quest rescuing Polly Prissy Pants from Children of the Corn Gingers, and vampire kids showing up around a cathedral.



Girls seemed to have played a larger role in the early screens. They show up as elf healers or archers. Wendy and Bebe, in their battle armor, can be seen in early screenshots and Wendy even has unused dialog that implies she participates in the school assault.



A poster of Jimmy with some goblin-painted kids in the background. Being that orcs and goblins. Probably just for promotional reasons but I wouldn't be surprised if you were supposed to fight them at some point in development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-1dMvWnOdE

E3 2012 announcement trailer. You can see a big war involving vampire kids and even some crab people. Butters is seen attacking some trashy looking girls, Woodland Critters used as a summon, and a giant Craig attacking city hall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tLmOcBjYFg

E3 2013 trailer with Randy Marsh doing the Nagasaki. Ironically the game wouldn't come out during its holiday 2013 season which was made fun of in the Black Friday special that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd4N8yEfr1M

The second official trailer. There are a bunch of areas on Cartman's map that didn't appear in the game but have been seen in some form during production. These include the cemetery/monster lab where the goth kids roamed, Hell's pass, and the elf forest. There's also an, uhm, very lewd Mr. Slave on his bed, ass out. Yeah. At the end you can see the pre-order weapons pack which never came out. They also had planned some story DLC that never came to fruition.

I'm trying to dig around for more unused audio files. In addition to Wendy having some cut audio there's also Briden Gueermo and Big Gay Al among a few others. Strangely there are two voices for Douchebag, one higher pitched than the other yet you only hear one in the end regardless of your character.