First and foremost I would have the sequel to a Video Game as I think the world of Kumandra is perfect for Video Games. You have five lands that are all sadly, due to the limited runtime of the film, underdeveloped but that could be fixed with a game which can run from anywhere to 10 or 100 hours so there's a real chance to use the media to its fullest and flesh out Kumandra, its people, the nature of the dragons, explore the place WITHOUT sacrificing character development.
But on that note there's also something else I would do if given the chance which is how I would develop the game, namely it wouldn't be just one game but a Trilogy... With all three games developed at the same time instead of doing them one at a time. Basically I would develop the games in the same vain as Lord of the Rings, all of them fully developed, with all the acting, level designing and cutscenes done at once.
There are a couple of reasons I would do it this way the first of which being, it would insure that all three games could be released in close proximiady to one another instead of waiting over 10 or 20 years WITHOUT having a rushed development (assuming I was given room to maneuver with no cruch time by the higher-ups). And would give a better chance of the story remaining on track with no way of going off the rails and thus avoiding what happened with the Star Wars Disney Sequel Trilogy.
Also, not all three games would be the same genre. For those who don't play games and therefore have no idea what I'm talking about games have different kinda of genres in terms of what kind of game it is. You have First-Person Shooters, Linear, Open Worlds, RPG (Role-Playing Games), Platform Games & Hack and Slash.
The first and third game in this trilogy would be open worlds (with the third game having linear dungeons) in the style of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring with some Ubisoft elements (yes the Ubisoft Towers would be a thing but there wouldn't be much of them). The first game would be set solely in the land of Talon while the Third game would be set all over Kumandra in all five lands. Both would have tons of side quests, secrets to find with you battling armies of enemies.
However, the second game would be completely Linear with no side quests, smaller battles and confined players to a single small area. The reason for this is to help keep the open world games fresh as if all three games were open world everyone would get pretty sick of it by the third game. Also it allows for a tighter focus on the story AND helps to sell the idea of how dangerous the villains by having the plot simply be as this. Raya and Namaari have been captured by the villains are now have to escape. That's the plot of the second game, you lose at the start and now you have to get away so you can fight another day.
It also would allow for more of a way to work around my least favorite element in games which is, the hell happened to all our gear and skills between games? It's often handwaved away by saying we just lost them and that's often all we get so this is, for me, a way to work around that issue. Game one and two are open world with RPG elements. You have skill trees, gear you can upgrade and can handle the story in any way you want (though it's not a full RPG as the story is scripted and Raya has her own character arc unaffected by the player).
In the second game there is no skill tree, gear to upgrade and again, you cannot go off the path you're on. And, minor spoilers, Raya ends up in a situation that makes it believable that she would need to get her skills up again along with getting and upgrading new gear.
As for the story I think I would take some elements from the original story as it would work rather well in a game. For example, the original idea for the Druun was that they were monsters that possessed armor that could only be killed with a certain weapon as shown here.
youtu.be/C3elVCl_khA
youtu.be/nWhx3pPKTOM
I would remove the bit of only a certain weapon being able to harm them and their ability to turn people to stone and instead have it where they just kill you but other than that same monster. The look and the method of their attack and the same idea. Originally the Druun were controlled by Namaari so we'd get something similar would happen here that these new monsters are controlled by an enemy of Raya (not Namaari as she's completely on Raya's side at this point because of the events of the film).
However, that's not enough to support an entire Trilogy so I would also include another set of villains, some from within the Kumandra itself (like the old lady from the film who was NASTY peace of work) and a new power NOT native to Kumandra that had their own power.
Onto the overall story the main focus would be what it's about in the film, the relationship between Raya and Namaari. Honestly the film could have just as easily been called Raya and the Princess of Fang as their relationship is really the driving force of the entire film and therefore the same would be true for this game Trilogy. The story is pretty much about Raya and Namaari coming to realize the depth of their feelings and them working together to save Kumandra.
So, yeah that's my idea for a sequel to Raya and the Last Dragon. There are a few things I didn't cover like how the Dragons play a part in the story, the companions you work with or how the game world be designed to have that Breath of the Wild/Elden Ring look to invite you to explore and discover the world. Or how to defeat players WITHOUT resorting to cutscene incompetence, or how the final boss of the second game ties into why Raya loses all her skills and gear at the end of that game or how I would use Side Quests in 1 and 3 to get players closer to their main objective so you're always given something to do and that the side quests ad main quest are never stepping on each others toes.
What do you think? Does this sound like something you'd want to play or does it sound at least interesting. Let me know?
