Their game quickly escalates out of control, bringing them into conflict with aliens, Nazi zombies, and gnomes, threatening the entire town with destruction.

The New Kid is able to freely explore the town of South Park, interacting with characters and undertaking quests, and accessing new areas by progressing through the main story.

Development began in 2009 after South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone approached Obsidian about making a role-playing game designed to look exactly like the television series.

A sequel, South Park: The Fractured but Whole, was released in October 2017, and The Stick of Truth was re-released in February 2018, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on Nintendo Switch in September 2018.

[5][6] At the beginning of the game, the player selects one of four character archetypes; the Fighter, Thief, Mage (which represent standard fantasy types), and the Jew.

[7] Experience points rewarded for completing tasks and winning battles allow the New Kid to level up,[3] unlocking new abilities and upgrades such as increasing the number of enemies an attack hits or the amount of damage inflicted.

For example, the "Cup-A-Spell" allows the player to throw a fart to interact with a distant object,[9] the "Nagasaki" destroys blockades, and the "Sneaky Squeaker" can be thrown to create a sound that distracts enemies.

[13] Collecting friends allows the player to unlock perks that permanently improve the New Kid's statistics, providing extra damage or resistance to negative effects.

[3] The Stick of Truth features several mini-games, including defecating by repeatedly tapping a button that rewards the player with feces that can be thrown at enemies to trigger the "grossed out" effect, performing an abortion,[24] and using an anal probe.

[21][27] Befriending the local boys, he becomes involved in an epic fantasy live action role-playing game featuring wizards and warriors battling for control of the Stick of Truth, a twig that possesses limitless power.

[30] The humans' rivals are the drow elves,[21] who live in the elven kingdom in the backyard of their leader,[31] High Jew Elf Kyle;[32] they also include the warrior Stan and Jimmy the bard.

[3] The Stick of Truth features the following historical South Park characters: Stan's father Randy Marsh, school teacher Mr. Garrison, Jesus, school counsellor Mr. Mackey, former United States Vice-President Al Gore,[17] the sadomasochism-loving Mr. Slave,[34] sentient feces Mr. Hankey, City Wok restaurant owner Tuong Lu Kim,[29] Stan's uncle Jimbo,[35] Mayor McDaniels, Priest Maxi, Skeeter,[6] Canadian celebrities Terrance and Phillip,[36] the Underpants Gnomes,[7] the Goth kids, the Ginger kids,[32] the Crab People;[37] the Christmas Critters,[38] and local boys Timmy, Scott Malkinson, and Kevin Stoley.

The goo turns living creatures into Adolf Hitler-esque Nazi Zombies; an infected person escapes government containment, unleashing the virus on South Park.

In the epilogue as South Park is rebuilt, the group retrieves the Stick of Truth; they decide its power is too great for any person to hold and throw it into Stark's Pond.

[40] Parker's original concept was for a South Park version of the 2011 role-playing fantasy game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and he estimated the first script he produced to be 500 pages long.

[41] The South Park Digital Studios team animated a concept of the game's opening scene to show what they wanted to accomplish with Obsidian in terms of appearance and gameplay mechanics.

Negative reaction to those games made the pair protective of their property and led to their greater involvement on The Stick of Truth; they refused several requests to license the series for new ventures.

[44] This partnership developed into a publishing arrangement after South Park owner Viacom, having grown wary of video games, cut its funding.

[40] In March 2012, Microsoft canceled Obsidian's upcoming Xbox One project codenamed "North Carolina" after seven months of development, resulting in the layoff of between 20 and 30 employees, including members of the Stick of Truth team.

I kept having in my head "do I really want [South Park: The Stick of Truth] to feel like that you are a little kid and you're playing this game and bigger shit ends up happening."

During early discussions with Obsidian, Parker and Stone were adamant that the game should faithfully replicate the show's unique 2D-style visuals, which are based on cutout animation.

[41] Parker and Stone said that the blended 2D/3D visuals of Paper Mario and the silent protagonist Link from The Legend of Zelda series also provided inspiration for the design.

[58] Obsidian created various fantasy-styled items, armor, and weapons but Parker and Stone told them to "make it crappier" to create the impression that the children had found or made the objects themselves; weapons consisted of golf clubs, hammers, suction cup arrows and wooden swords, while bathrobes, oven mitt gloves, and towels worn as capes served as clothing.

[62]Like the show, The Stick of Truth satirizes political and social issues including abortion, race relations, anal probes, drug addiction, sex, extreme violence, and poverty.

[37] Urquhart later said that when development began, video games were less protected by freedom of speech laws than other media, restricting the content that could be included in The Stick of Truth.

[7] IGN praised The Stick of Truth for its witty and intelligent satire of the role-playing genre, while others said that as well as being consistently funny, the game was suitably boisterous, shocking, provocative, self-effacing, and fearless in its desire to offend.

Reviewers considered the combat mechanics to be simplistic while allowing for complex tactics, and others said that the requirement to actively defend against enemy attacks and enhance offense kept fights engaging.

[17][18] Joystiq stated that defense was more interesting than offense because it relied on time-sensitive reactions to creative enemy attacks such as Al Gore giving a presentation.

[4] IGN also said some missions and side quests were tedious, and were elevated by their setting rather than their quality,[5] while the reviewer thought the environmental puzzles were a clever option for avoiding combat and were rare enough to be enjoyable when available.

[19][97] Reviewers said that many of the gameplay functions and controls were poorly explained, making them difficult to activate; others were critical of excessive loading times upon entering new locations and slow menus such as the Facebook panel.