Comic Con: South Park: The Stick of Truth video game with Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

As a huge fan of South Park and pretty much anything else creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone touch (even BASEKETBALL), it was great to see them finally come to Comic Con for their new video game, The Stick of Truth—an RPG set in South Park that’s essentially a playable version of the show.

This isn’t the first time Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny have ventured in to the world of video games, but it is the first time Parker and Stone have actively been involved with the product. After 16 seasons of TV, a movie, a musical album, and a Broadway show, it was inevitable the duo would tackle this world next—especially as huge gaming fans. They essentially treated it like any other episode of the show, writing a full script, overseeing pretty much every aspect of production and learning a valuable lesson in how different making a game is than television. (“I loved playing Skyrim and said ‘Let’s do this. It looks easy.'”)

After four years of production and some setbacks (the game was originally scheduled to come out in March, but was pushed back to an unspecified release in late 2013 after the original company went bankrupt), Parker and Stone were clearly burnt out and bitter from the grueling schedule, but still hilarious. Both started off the panel by repeatedly announcing they weren’t taking any questions about the video game and chastised any fans that dared to defy them. “Who wants to talk about BASEKETBALL?” asked Parker, before promising a sequel to the 1998 film. They continued to mock themselves and their hatred for The Stick of Truth until eventually the moderator said the panel was “slowly turning in to a really sad intervention.”

Highlights:

– The pair originally came up with the idea back for the game when Xbox360 and PS3 first came out but didn’t actually start production until four years ago. They were waiting for the next gen consoles to come out because they wanted it to look and feel exactly like the show and the “authentic crapiness” was hard to get right.

– The game play takes advantage of the kids’ occasional commitment to game playing—be it detective or talent agents. This time around the children are playing a Lord of the Rings-style game except that it escalates to “ridiculous proportions”

– In true South Park fashion, farts are the big power up for each character and Terrence and Phillip show up as “the final fart gurus you have to get your dragon power from.”

– Chef makes an appearance in the game!

– Parker and Stone are considering tying the game in to the new season, so that the last couple episodes lead in to it. Parker said the original script was “like 830 pages” and featured every character in the history of the show, so there’s plenty of extra content they could use.

– As for the show itself, the new once-a-year run is the longest break they’ve had from South Park in 16 years and Parker said he’s losing his mind with Cartman’s voice popping up in his head. Doing the show is almost like therapy for them. They’ve already had their writers retreat for the new season and are four episodes in, a much longer lead than they usually have. Bill Hader is on board as a writer for the entire season now that he left SNL.

– On how they’ve changed after 16 seasons: “When the show started I wanted to do an impersonation of my dad. ‘This is how my dad talks.’ Now it’s how I actually talk.” The reason Randy is featured in more and more episodes is because that’s who Parker identifies with now. “We started out all ass kicking and now we’re all Randy.”

– What keeps them interested in these characters after so long? “Cash”

– There’s no plans for a “Book of Mormon” movie at the moment. They considered doing it as a movie originally, so they already have ideas on how to do it. But people are enjoying it as a stage show and they don’t want to kill it.

– They also announced plans to shoot their own version of Dan Brown’s novel INFERNO titled INFINO and release on the same day as the Ron Howard adaptation. Parker said he’s ” totally, totally not kidding.”

– After the infamous Jennifer Lopez episode, they had friends that worked on her latest movie and got fired because they would all do the hand puppet in front of her.

– There will be a lot of songs in the game. Some old, some new. Parker said that was probably his favorite part of the process.

– Stone said they have to stop themselves from making every show a Cartman show. And any scene with Cartman and Butters writes itself.

– On their video game influences: Parker cited Earthbound due to how real it felt. Stone said Zelda because the character doesn’t talk. And both said the 2D-3D gameplay was similar to Paper Mario.

– When asked about releasing DLC (Downloadable Content), Parker said “F*ck that!” as the crowd cheered.

– Where does the video game take place in the South Park timeline? “Like it f*cking matters. Before we used to care about continuity, but f*ck it, we kill a kid every week.”

– In the game you play a new kid in town and you get to make your own identity and represent yourself. When asked if you could play as a female avatar, Parker said, “As long as you complete the abortion clinic level you get your girl skin. That’s the honest answer.”

– The game forced the duo to sit down and map out the geography of the town which they enjoyed and now have for the show.

– Part of the game will be in anime-style similar to the episode “Fun Times with Weapons.”

– More than once Parker and Stone paid tribute to the group of talented artists that work for them, yet are forced to waste their skills on the show’s simple animation. They’ll get to show off a bit in the game.

– On why they’re famous for doing everything themselves. “We wanted to be rock stars and rockers don’t farm it out. We’ll be 68 and still doing South Park. It’ll suck but it’ll still be us.”