Originating as a 2011 Half-Life 2 mod by Davey Wreden, the developer collaborated with William Pugh on a reworked, standalone release in 2013, and Pugh's company Crows Crows Crows published the expanded version, originally scheduled for a 2019 release, in 2022.
In order to satiate Stanley fans' thirst for a physical version, Crows Crows Crows has collaborated with iam8bit to deliver not just The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe on cart (or disc, depending on your platform), but also an array of physical goodies pertaining to Stanley and his parable.
They're launching today in Europe — North American Stans are facing a small delay until October 15th — so to find out more we caught up with Crows Crows Crows founder William Pugh via email to discuss Ultra Deluxe, physical swag to do Stanley justice, and perhaps gaming's most important topic, Banjo-Kazooie.
How many ideas had to be cut in order to make Ultra Deluxe feasible?
William Pugh: It's the opposite actually, we ended up adding to it over the course of development, so it ballooned as development continued, hence the millions of delays! A lot of time also had to be spent porting the game from the Source Engine to Unity, which made integrating the new content with the existing game's logic… a uniquely challenging experience.
The response has been very positive overall, but is there anything about the finished release — omission or inclusion, perhaps — that you regret?
Overall it's done fantastically and we as a studio and also as a collection of individuals who collaborated on this have really benefited from the collective support of both the existing Stanley Parable community and also new players too. I don't feel like anything is 'missing' in the game, but we had an additional feature in the "showcase hall" section of the new content that was a massive door, that would feature heavily in the game's marketing, but upon closer inspection just turn out to be cardboard and be totally un-interactive. We ended up cutting it because it felt like the weakest of the 'additions' to that section of the game and the beat just wasn't landing.
Note. The following is going to be big spoilers for the game, so please skip to the next question if you've not played Ultra Deluxe yet!
Okay, here we go! The Epilogue environment used to be an endless sea of buckets, Jim buttons, figurines, holes, epilogue menu items, and achievement machines - but it was a real struggle to get it looking compelling while still hitting our performance targets, it would've taken a LOT more time to realise and ultimately we decided a continuation of the desert from "Memory Zone / Skip Button" was more compelling. It also raised this weird contradiction of the Epilogue continuing the story from an earlier ending, which I won't comment on directly but it felt in keeping with the contradictions throughout the rest of the game.
'The Stanley Parable CopyConductor 980 TX Instructional Audio Tape' featuring instructional audio by Kevan Brighting, Tom Schley, and William Pugh
I think the obvious one is The Bucket, but I think our Bucket Guide more than makes up for it. I think it wouldn't have been ethical to massively increase the financial and environmental cost of the bundle when on average no person on the planet is more than 10m away from a bucket at any given moment.
How heartbreaking was it to not include any physical reference to the excellent Brentilda Winkybunion ending? We're assuming there were licensing issues.
Aha. Well done Gavin. I see you've done your homework and are referencing my age-old fondness for Banjo-Kazooie.
I think the studio's position is that Gruntilda said on record in the final scene of Banjo-Tooie: "You'll be sorry, all of you! Just you wait until Banjo-Threeie…" which constitutes a legally binding promise, and unless they had their fingers crossed while typing out that dialogue string there's not really any way they can get out of it. However they didn't put a timeline on it, so somewhere between 50 and 75 years from now (assuming copyright law doesn't change) Banjo-Kazooie will fall into public ownership, so I'd like to think that eventually, no matter what, Gruntilda will get her revenge… Anyway – BUY THE STANLEY PARABLE: ULTRA DELUXE!!!
It's tough to pick favourites, but is there a particular tune from the Stanley soundtrack that you love, or one you find randomly popping into your brain on occasion?
The original score of the 2013 version is absolutely iconic, but I can't help but be a huge Tom Schley fan - Stanley's New Apartment was one of the last tracks to be added, but it's so haunting and it elevated the ending to be probably one of my favourite parts of the entire game. The Epilogue is a fan favorite and for good reason too, but The End Is Never The End Again is great, it mixes the mystery, playfulness and psychological horror of the game into one track. You can listen to them all here:
Is the CopyConductor 980 TX Instructional Audio Tape audio going to be available on streaming services?
Eventually, but we'll let the people who bought it enjoy it in reality first!
Back on the subject of Banjo-Kazooie, we've read that it was your first game love. What would your B-K credits nickname be, and why?
William "Pesto Panini" Pugh.
Crows Crows Crows is coming up on its tenth anniversary next year. After running your own studio for the best part of a decade, what advice would you give your 2015 self if you could send a message back nine years?
The advice would come in the form of a USB with the source code to all of the video games we've released, it would've made the whole thing a lot easier.
Is this the final chapter for Stanley? Is it time for him to be put to bed?
Never say never! But I know that everybody involved has other exciting work they're going to be sharing with the world sooner or later! Davey Wreden's new game Wanderstop looks really exciting, and Crows Crows Crows has been working on a new project for a while that is still a way off from being talked about publicly.
A lot of Ultra Deluxe's new content is (in a way) an examination of franchise culture and the journey of adding "MORE!" to art that already stands on its own. I think the message is it's a bad thing and cheapens both the creator and creation, apart from when we did it. When we did it it was funny and poggers.
(I would like there to be a note here that I said poggers in an ironic self-aware way that suggests that I have never said poggers out loud in my life before.)
Stanley is actually his surname, it's his first name that's the real mystery.
