Rematch authors apologize to Sifu fans: why is the new game not Sifu 2?

The announcement of Rematch came as a surprise to most fans of Sloclap, but its director wishes it hadn't. In an interview with GamesRadar+, creative director Pierre Tarno said that "some Sifu fans were disappointed when the game was announced, and we're sorry to say that". However, he also believes that much of this disappointment could have been avoided with better marketing.

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"Because the announcement trailer had a beginning like 'from the team that made Sifu', they thought: 'Okay, Sifu 2 is coming,'" Tarno explained.

"I'm sorry for that misunderstanding, because I think we probably should have let the Sifu community know earlier that we were going to announce a title and that it wasn't going to be Sifu 2 and they shouldn't have expected that, just so they didn't feel that disappointment."

Even if the communication could have been better, Tarno maintains that Sifu was never meant to be Sloclap's "forever" game. "We provided support for Sifu for a year and a half after launch," he says, pointing to updates, new content, a full expansion pack - enough to make "us feel like we really provided and gave everything we had to Sifu." This doesn't mean that the game will never return, but Sloclap decided that "it's better to let it rest for now".

It's a problem that he says can be common in the industry, with players "expecting studios to make the same genre over and over again." The focus on martial arts in Sifu and its predecessor Absolver could encourage a third instalment in this space, but Tarno says "that's not our approach".

Source: GamesRadar