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Lucas Pope Is Keeping His Next Game Quiet, and AI Is Part of the Reason
Lucas Pope, the developer behind Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, says he is deliberately avoiding sharing details about his next project. Speaking on the Mike & Rami Are Still Here podcast, Pope framed the decision as intentional silence rather than simple “nothing to show yet”, pointing to the modern reality of ideas being harvested at scale.
Pope has previously been an unusually transparent creator, often discussing design decisions and prototypes in public. This shift, therefore, reads less like standard indie secrecy and more like a change in how he thinks the internet treats unfinished work.
The Specific Fear: Ideas Being Scraped and Replicated
Pope’s concern is that anything he shows publicly can be scraped, absorbed, and reproduced by AI systems trained on large volumes of online material. He also acknowledged the older, more familiar version of the same anxiety: that other developers might borrow too directly once an idea is visible.
The distinction matters. Inspiration is normal. Pope’s worry is the loss of friction, where copying becomes easier, faster, and harder to trace, especially when the intermediate step is an AI model rather than a human designer who can be challenged directly.
Expectations Are Also Part of the Lockdown
Pope also spoke about pressure, and not in a performative way. After two widely celebrated games, anything he builds next arrives with a built-in comparison set. That can be motivating, but it can also narrow creative freedom if every early experiment is judged as a potential successor to Obra Dinn rather than as its own project.
The idea is that success is a double-edged sword: recognition helps, but it amplifies fear of falling short, especially in public, where half-formed ideas become “promises” in the eyes of an audience.
A Quiet Development Philosophy
Rather than chasing the expectation treadmill, Lucas Pope says he is prioritising personal satisfaction in the work itself, focusing on the process instead of the reception. In practical terms, that points to a longer silent stretch, with fewer teasers and fewer public check-ins than fans might be used to.
Pope’s most recent release was Mars After Midnight in 2024 for Playdate. For now, his next project remains unnamed, and based on his current stance, it will likely stay that way until he is ready to show something close to finished.
