14 DAY TRIAL // SEGA will not be publishing a sequel to Alpha Protocol because of the low sales of Obsidian's espionage role playing game, according to a recent interview with Mike Hayes, the president of the company’s Western division. While there were many who enjoyed this flawed gem, yours truly included, the title proved to be a critical and financial failure for the publisher.
In an interview with CVG, Hayes talked about his company's decision not to fund a follow-up for Alpha Protocol. “Let's speak very commercially; the game hasn't sold what we've expected, therefore we won't be doing a sequel. [...] The concept was brilliant, though. You know this whole thing with Metacritic where you have to be in the high 70s to mid-80s minimum [to have any success] - well, with RPGs you have got to be in the late 80s.”
Hayes continued, “Whilst we had a good game, I don't think we had a game that had enough to get us to that upper echelon and I think that was the issue. Again, the amount you need to invest to get there is so large because RPGs are naturally big projects. We've decided we won't do a sequel.”
Alpha Protocol was quite a big hit here at Softpedia, as you can see from the long series of diaries and the review we wrote. It would be nice to see Obsidian convince another publisher to fund a sequel for this controversial game and try to deliver a more polished experience next time around. It may not happen in the near future, as the developer is working on two big projects with two different publishers: Fallout: New Vegas with Bethesda, Dungeon Siege III with Square Enix. There have been rumors saying that Obsidian is working on a bigger project, but nothing has been officially announced yet.