As tough as it is to say plainly, it’s been nearly a decade since the South Park RPG The Fractured But Whole, and a dozen years since The Stick of Truth. Two beloved RPGs, both critically praised, both commercially successful—and yet no threequel. With success like that, one would be forgiven for thinking the natural assumption was “when,” not “if,” but a perfect storm of business shifts, bandwidth problems, and creative restlessness seemed to have shot down the obvious South Park RPG trilogy before it could close out.
Despite a global context that made a third South Park RPG difficult back then, a situational one for Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park) really does remain. A nearly billion-dollar Paramount+ deal contractually pins them to their television obligations, the medium has evolved from under them, and with the duo’s aversion to the premise of revisiting an old idea, it’s sort of miraculous that fans have what they do already. Knowing that doesn’t make it feel any better, but it does make the South Park RPG-shaped hole in the heart make more sense.
Parker and Stone Are Absolutely Swamped
The pillars that stand between fans and another South Park game aren’t created equal, though, and the first is undoubtedly the biggest: when it comes to South Park, its creators are contractually buried. In 2021, Parker and Stone signed one of the richest deals in TV history, a deal with ViacomCBS worth more than $900 million over six years, and it came with golden shackles. The deal renewed South Park for Comedy Central through its 30th season and committed Parker and Stone to produce 14 movies for Paramount+ even before it was extended by another five years in 2025, to the tune of $250 million per year.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
It may not be true in every case, but in this particular one, more money really does equate to more problems. Stone himself noted that the two made-for-TV movies per year goal is where their head is at, and for two guys who oversee and participate in every frame of South Park content, who have a notoriously quick production process, that’s an understandable goal. South Park‘s current production pipeline leaves precious little runway for a 40–60-hour RPG that would require them to be intensely involved.
The South Park Studio Carousel
There’s also the wrinkle of game development, which—on its own—comes with multiple serious complexities. Even who develops the next South Park game remains a giant question mark, as the three big South Park games that players already have all came from different development teams:
- South Park: The Stick of Truth (2014): Developed by a ~50-person team at Obsidian Entertainment
- South Park: The Fractured But Whole (2017): developed by Ubisoft San Francisco after Ubisoft purchased the rights from a bankrupt THQ in 2013
- South Park: Snow Day! (2024): Developed by Question Games
Obsidian has since been acquired by Microsoft and has an entirely different slate of projects, making a return to South Park essentially impossible. Ubisoft San Francisco was specifically structured to mimic South Park‘s production pipeline, so that Parker and Stone’s inevitable last-minute changes could be implemented late in development. But that team and that infrastructure don’t exist in service of South Park anymore, either, which leaves Question Games, and unfortunately, there are problems in this arena, too.
South Park: Phone Destroyer and Snow Day
For context, after Fractured But Whole, South Park Digital Studios greenlit two experimental titles rather than a threequel. Phone Destroyer was a mobile card game, and Snow Day!, a 2024 roguelike-inspired live service title. Stone explained the thinking directly:
“We came off of The Fractured But Whole, and we definitely wanted to do another video game, but we wanted to do something different…more about replayability. More about being able to update characters. We always thought we wanted to do that thing where we do a thing in a show and then, like, it’s in the game two weeks later, or three weeks, or whatever it is.”
The problem is that a mobile title isn’t a fitting alternative, and Snow Day’s live-service dream never quite materialized. South Park: Snow Day! received mixed reviews, with criticism leveled at its repetitive gameplay and toned-down humor, and after two acclaimed RPG outings, critics called it a crushingly disappointing effort that left behind everything that made the previous games work.
Mixed Signals from South Park’s Latest Video Game Ventures
Neither of these titles were particularly well received, but they weren’t exactly cashgrabs, either—Snow Day’s $29.99 price point was deliberately chosen to manage risk, with Stone admitting that it only seemed fair when aiming to “try 3D for the first time, make it work, make all those systems work without biting off too much and failing at it.” That’s reassuring, but equally confusing; certainly not the framing of a franchise swinging for the fences with every outing.
Can a South Park RPG Even Be Made Anymore?
It’s also possible that RPGs like The Stick of Truth or The Fractured But Whole might not be feasible nowadays. Those RPGs took roughly 3–4 years each to make, and each required Parker and Stone’s deep involvement throughout, from writing scripts and consulting on design to voicing almost every character. Ubisoft San Francisco developers visited South Park Studios twice a month for Fractured But Whole, but Parker and Stone were less available as production continued due to the show’s tight schedule.
The kicker is that Fractured But Whole’s time struggle was when there was just one season of South Park per year. Now, Parker and Stone owe Paramount+ two feature-length specials per year on top of full (though admittedly shorter) seasons. All that paints Snow Day! differently, not as a creative detour, but as an attempt to find a format that required less of Parker and Stone’s time while still feeling current.
Hope For A South Park RPG Remains
As gloomy as this all may seem, the appetite for an RPG threequel is clearly there, as Snow Day‘s mixed reception largely stems from critics and fans measuring it against the RPGs, which is itself the clearest signal that demand exists. But appetite alone doesn’t greenlight a game, and what a South Park RPG threequel actually needs is a developer with a genuine RPG pedigree willing to work around Parker and Stone’s chaos, and a contract window where the two have enough breathing room to commit the time. Neither of those conditions is impossible, but neither is currently met, either.
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South Park: Snow Day!
- Released
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March 26, 2024
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Strong Language, Violence, Mature Humor
- Developer(s)
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Question
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South Park: The Fractured But Whole
8/10
- Released
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October 17, 2017
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Mature Humor, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Ubisoft San Francisco
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South Park: The Stick of Truth
8/10
- Released
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March 4, 2014
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Violence
