{"id":1870095,"date":"2026-04-07T15:57:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1870095"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:57:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:57:26","slug":"return-of-the-obra-dinn-developer-lucas-pope-doesnt-feel-comfortable-talking-about-new-projects-because-maybe-theyll-be-slurped-up-by-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1870095","title":{"rendered":"Return of the Obra Dinn developer Lucas Pope doesn&#8217;t feel comfortable talking about new projects because maybe they&#8217;ll be &#8220;slurped up by AI&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Return of the Obra Dinn developer Lucas Pope doesn&#8217;t feel comfortable talking about new projects because maybe they&#8217;ll be &#8220;slurped up by AI&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;It&#8217;s just I got a feeling about that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/sc5itq.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Return of the Obra Dinn - crowd reunion scene\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"sc5itq.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>3909\/Lucas Pope<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fran Ruiz avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/fran-j-ruiz-author.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"180\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Fran Ruiz avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"fran-j-ruiz-author.png\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"180\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/fran-ruiz\">Fran Ruiz<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Contributor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-04-07T15:57:26+00:00\">April 7, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"0eb83a68-cee1-4064-8322-3788b6750415\" data-name=\"Papers Please\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Papers, Please\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Papers, Please\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Papers, Please\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Papers, Please\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Papers, Please\" title=\"Follow Papers, Please\"><br \/>\n  Follow Papers, Please<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/papers-please\">Papers, Please<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/return-of-the-obra-dinn\">Return of the Obra Dinn<\/a> are two of the most celebrated indie games around, even to this day, and Lucas Pope, the developer behind them, isn&#8217;t stopping any time soon, but he&#8217;s hesitant about revealing anything too early.<\/p>\n<p>This is what he commented on and explained during a conversation on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_4tmVdKPgUA\">Mike &amp; Rami Are Still Here<\/a> (hat tip to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/return-of-the-obra-dinn-dev-says-ai-makes-him-hesitant-to-talk-about-new-projects\">IGN<\/a>), the podcast run by No More Robots co-founder Mike Rose and Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail. While he was happy to discuss the business, he said being open about his creative plans isn&#8217;t something he&#8217;s &#8220;comfortable&#8221; with, at least not at this stage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I also like to talk about the stuff I&#8217;m working on, and I think, just now, the situation just feels different to me&#8230; You don&#8217;t really talk about stuff when you&#8217;re working on it, because I don&#8217;t know that it&#8217;s going to get slurped up by AI or people are going to copy it, or something else like that. It&#8217;s not a hard rule. It&#8217;s just I got a feeling about that,&#8221; he explained, also adding he hopes &#8220;that sort of breaks&#8221; so he can relax a bit.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a surprising stance coming from an indie developer, but considering how successful the two aforementioned games have been, I&#8217;d guess he&#8217;s got the freedom to choose to do that. If you haven&#8217;t been keeping track of his full career, he&#8217;s also made browser games like The Sea Has No Claim or Unsolicited. More recently, he also released <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/games\/mars-after-midnight\">Mars After Midnight for the Playdate console<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Pope believes he&#8217;s been &#8220;pushing his luck&#8221; by finding success with Papers, Please and then Obra Dinn. &#8220;Do I really want to maybe just go out on a high note?&#8221; He said. &#8220;Why drag myself down with the next thing that people may not like? I feel lucky with those two games. I can do the same things again. I can sort of focus on narrative, and gameplay, and mechanics, and stuff like that, but who knows? It could be a total miss.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the time of writing, we don&#8217;t know anything about Pope&#8217;s next game, and by the sound of things, we might not learn anything until it&#8217;s close to completion.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/papers-please\">Papers, Please<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/return-of-the-obra-dinn\">Return of the Obra Dinn<\/a> are two of the most celebrated indie games around, even to this day, and Lucas Pope, the developer behind them, isn&#8217;t stopping any time soon, but he&#8217;s hesitant about revealing anything too early.<\/p>\n<p>This is what he commented on and explained during a conversation on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_4tmVdKPgUA\">Mike &amp; Rami Are Still Here<\/a> (hat tip to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/return-of-the-obra-dinn-dev-says-ai-makes-him-hesitant-to-talk-about-new-projects\">IGN<\/a>), the podcast run by No More Robots co-founder Mike Rose and Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail. While he was happy to discuss the business, he said being open about his creative plans isn&#8217;t something he&#8217;s &#8220;comfortable&#8221; with, at least not at this stage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I also like to talk about the stuff I&#8217;m working on, and I think, just now, the situation just feels different to me&#8230; You don&#8217;t really talk about stuff when you&#8217;re working on it, because I don&#8217;t know that it&#8217;s going to get slurped up by AI or people are going to copy it, or something else like that. It&#8217;s not a hard rule. It&#8217;s just I got a feeling about that,&#8221; he explained, also adding he hopes &#8220;that sort of breaks&#8221; so he can relax a bit.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a surprising stance coming from an indie developer, but considering how successful the two aforementioned games have been, I&#8217;d guess he&#8217;s got the freedom to choose to do that. If you haven&#8217;t been keeping track of his full career, he&#8217;s also made browser games like The Sea Has No Claim or Unsolicited. More recently, he also released <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/games\/mars-after-midnight\">Mars After Midnight for the Playdate console<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Pope believes he&#8217;s been &#8220;pushing his luck&#8221; by finding success with Papers, Please and then Obra Dinn. &#8220;Do I really want to maybe just go out on a high note?&#8221; He said. &#8220;Why drag myself down with the next thing that people may not like? I feel lucky with those two games. I can do the same things again. I can sort of focus on narrative, and gameplay, and mechanics, and stuff like that, but who knows? It could be a total miss.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the time of writing, we don&#8217;t know anything about Pope&#8217;s next game, and by the sound of things, we might not learn anything until it&#8217;s close to completion.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News Return of the Obra Dinn developer Lucas Pope doesn&#8217;t feel comfortable talking about new projects because maybe they&#8217;ll be &#8220;slurped up by AI&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s just I got a feeling about that.&#8221; Image credit: 3909\/Lucas Pope News by Fran Ruiz Contributor Published on April 7, 2026 Follow Papers, Please Papers, Please and Return of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1870095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1870095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1870095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1870095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1870095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}