{"id":8192,"date":"2026-04-06T21:52:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T18:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/04\/06\/return-of-the-obra-dinn-dev-says-ai-makes-him-hesitant-to-talk-about-new-projects\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T21:52:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T18:52:38","slug":"return-of-the-obra-dinn-dev-says-ai-makes-him-hesitant-to-talk-about-new-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/04\/06\/return-of-the-obra-dinn-dev-says-ai-makes-him-hesitant-to-talk-about-new-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Return of the Obra Dinn Dev Says AI Makes Him Hesitant to Talk About New Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn developer Lucas Pope is hesitant to reveal too much about the games he\u2019s working on because he\u2019s concerned his projects could \u201cget slurped up by AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mind behind some of the most critically acclaimed indie titles of the last 20 years talked about his past, present, and future in game development during a conversation No More Robots co-founder Mike Rose and Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail on the Mike & Rami Are Still Here podcast. When speaking about his approach to the business side of his projects, Pope spoke about his desire to be open about his process \u2013 and why he may refrain from doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also like to talk about the stuff I\u2019m working on, and I think, just now, the situation just feels different to me,\u201d Pope said, “You don\u2019t really talk about stuff when you\u2019re working on it, because I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s going to get slurped up by AI or people are going to copy it, or something else like that. It\u2019s not a hard rule. It\u2019s just I got a feeling about that. And I just didn\u2019t feel as comfortable talking about the stuff I was working on again. So I hope that sort of breaks, and I can feel comfortable talking about the stuff I\u2019m working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

While also describing himself as a \u201cproduction-focused\u201d developer, who wants \u201cto produce something at the end,\u201d Pope adds that he does have some concerns about delivering additional projects that live up to the quality seen with Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. The former launched in 2013, and the latter launched in 2018, and both have gone down as two of the best games of the 2010s. Return of the Obra Dinn even managed to land at 74 on IGN\u2019s list of the top 100 games of all time.<\/p>\n

Do I really want to maybe just go out on a high note?\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Pope went on to release the Playdate exclusive Mars After Midnight in 2024. Although this more bite-sized title went on to earn its own group of dedicated fans, it\u2019s the previously mentioned two hits that he says has him careful to \u201cpush my luck too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also the sense that I was pretty happy with Obra Dinn and Papers, Please, and maybe I can\u2019t do it again?\u201d Pope explained. \u201cDo I really want to maybe just go out on a high note? 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope has remained quiet about what\u2019s he\u2019s working on next, and it\u2019s possible the concerns he shared today are behind his silence. While we wait to see what\u2019s next, you can read our 8.7\/10 review of Papers, Please, and our 9.2\/10 review of Return of the Obra Dinn.<\/p>\n

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-8192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}