Fans have been waiting nearly 13 years for an official sequel to Black Isle Studios' Planescape: Torment, the groundbreaking PC RPG that turned many of the genre's conventions on their heads. Now, it seems that sequel is finally set to move forward, with Torment designer Colin McComb once again asking "What can change the nature of a man?".

Speculation about the project started in earnest after McComb—who has also worked on Fallout: New Vegas and the recently Kickstarted Wasteland 2—recently penned a long blog post reflecting on his time working on Torment and speculating on what could be done with a sequel.

"The first step in designing a new Torment story is to ask the primary question," he wrote. "I’m older than I was when I worked on Torment, and my questions now are different than they were. I have children now, and I look at the world through their eyes and through mine, and that’s changed me—in fact, the intervening years have changed me so much that I have new answers for the central story in the original Torment. So now that I know what can change the nature of a man, I ask: What does one life matter?... and does it matter at all?"

All this thinking about a sequel led McComb to reach out to Torment lead designer Chris Avellone, and the pair discussed how a sequel would be possible without the interference of rights-holder Wizards of the Coast. "We both agreed that Planescape was not the best route for us to take anyway, due to the mechanical issues and editorial oversight WotC would want," McComb told Eurogamer. In other words, the new title will be a Torment game, but without the Planescape setting controlled by WotC. McComb said he then asked for and received Avellone's explicit blessing to work on the Torment sequel he has been envisioning, while Avellone continues to focus on the highly anticipated Project Eternity.

Meanwhile, a trademark application for the name "Torment" has popped up on the USPTO website in reference to "providing online downloadable computer and video game programs" and "providing temporary use of online non-downloadable computer and video games." The trademark was filed back in May by Roxy Friday, a company controlled by Black Isle Studios' Brian Fargo, who has used it to register other game-related trademarks in the past.

"There are many other pieces to the pie on this project that I can't speak to yet which prevents me from much comment," Fargo told Eurogamer. "I need to get the other elements in order so you can fully understand the detail, team, approach and reasoning first. There will lots of pleasant surprises but I had not planned on talking about it yet."