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Frequently Asked Questions

Below you’ll find the answers to a bunch of questions that you may or may not be pondering. Remember that you can always ask on the forum or send an email if your question isn’t covered here.

1. When is Brutal Legend coming out?
2. Which platforms will Brutal Legend be available on?
3. Is Brutal Legend still coming out despite its publisher problems?
4. Who’s Tim Schafer, and what is Double Fine?
5. Why do you call it ‘Brutal Legend’ everywhere? It’s ‘Brütal Legend’, stupid!
6. Come to mention it, how do you type that dotted ‘u’ anyway?
7. So, this is a “fan site”. That means it’s unofficial, right?

When is Brutal Legend coming out?

Electronic Arts has slated Brutal Legend for release on October 13th, 2009 in the US, and October 16th, 2009 in Europe. See the announcement news post for more information.

Which platforms will Brutal Legend be available on?

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are Brutal Legend‘s launch platforms. Inside sources claimed that a Wii version was under development, but cancelled due to quality concerns. It was clarified by Tim Schafer in July 2009 that there are no plans to develop a PC version.

Is Brutal Legend still coming out despite its publisher problems?

Brutal Legend was originally being published by Sierra Entertainment, which was owned by Vivendi Games. In 2008, Vivendi Games and Activision — another publisher — merged to form a new company: Activision Blizzard. Sierra Entertainment thus became a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, and in the process a lot of games across the entire new company were shelved.

Brutal Legend was one of these games, plunging both Double Fine and its fans into months of fearing the game was never to be. After speculation indicating companies ranging from MTV to Microsoft being the new publisher, it was eventually revealed in December 2008 that Electronic Arts will be publishing Brutal Legend.

For many months during 2009 there was a very public disagreement between Activision Blizzard and Double Fine over the publishing of the game — covered extensively by BRUTAL! — culminating in the two companies suing each other. The lawsuits were finally settled on August 6th, 2009 with undisclosed terms, meaning Brutal Legend will come out as planned.

Who’s Tim Schafer, and what is Double Fine?

After years of writing and designing fantastic games such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango, Tim Schafer left LucasArts in 2000 along with some of his finest colleagues to form Double Fine — an independent game development studio that’s since worked with Microsoft, Majesco Games, Sierra Entertainment, and Electronic Arts.

Tim Schafer is known for designing games with a sharp wit, as well as captivating stories, characters, and worlds. Double Fine has released one game thus far called Psychonauts, which received critical acclaim and is held in extremely high regard by players and press alike. Tim Schafer received a BAFTA award for the Psychonauts screenplay, and the game itself won numerous awards including GameSpot’s ‘Game of the Year’.

Why do you call it ‘Brutal Legend‘ everywhere? It’s ‘Brütal Legend‘, stupid!

Yes, OK — you’re right. The game is called Brütal Legend. But who’s really going to bother inputting that crazy umlaut every single time? Even the official Brutal Legend site doesn’t bother! The other and slightly more technical reason is that people searching Google and whatnot probably won’t be using the proper title either, so if the site uses the wrong spelling it’ll appear in the results for guys searching for the wrong spelling. You know it makes sense.

Come to mention it, how do you type that dotted ‘u’ anyway?

If you’re using Windows, you can get yourself an umlauted ‘u’ by holding down ALT and then keying in either ‘129’ or ‘0252’ on the number pad. If you’re using a Mac, hold down the option key and then press ‘u’; this will enable umlaut mode, which means various letters will have an umlaut when typed. Once you’re done, hold down the option key again and hit ‘u’ to disable umlaut mode.

So, this is a “fan site”. That means it’s unofficial, right?

Yes. While those officially affiliated with Brutal Legend probably think this place is awesome, BRUTAL! definitely lies within the journalism side of the internet. Content is researched and sources are checked, but no developers of the game work for this site — accuracy isn’t guaranteed.