PlayStation News Message Board older than one year ago

If you see new PS3 box art in stores or online, don't be alarmed. Sony has changed the appearance of PlayStation 3 software... at least at a glance.

Will we see the debut of Sony's rumored virtual reality headset for the PS4?

Free-to-play social Vita RPG details changes from beta in preparation for launch.

Another JRPG from Level 5 celebrates an impressive milestone.

The procedurally generated "ultimate space anime fantasy" will join the already-announced PS4 version.

In a conversation with IGN, Sony's Scott Rohde talks about why there were layoffs at God of War dev Sony Santa Monica, and what's next for the studio.

Magus is the worst game I've played this year, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.

Bad games typically fall into one of two categories. Many are bad because they're mechanically awkward or otherwise deeply flawed in terms of controls, making them frustrating to play. The second category is much rarer. These games are poorly conceived but otherwise inoffensive with regard to gameplay, often rendering them inept in an endearing sort of way.

Magus, exclusive to PS3, neatly falls into the latter category, offering up tons of unintentional laughs at the expense of its boneheaded writing and simplistic gameplay. It's a rare gem of a game that manages to be immensely entertaining despite having no obvious redeeming qualities whatsoever.

We are happy to announce that Destiny of Spirits will be launching in North America exclusively on PS Vita on March 25th, 2014. Other regions will also be releasing the game around the same time, so you’ll be able to start playing and making friends around the world. We hope everyone has a chance to play Destiny of Spirits, as it is a fun, addictive RPG-ish strategy game that gives true meaning to having friends around the world. If you haven’t heard of Destiny of Spirits, check out the trailer below!

What’s New

Thanks to everyone’s contribution during the Closed Beta Test in October last year, we were able to collect valuable feedback and spend time to improve gameplay and game balance! Here are some new and improved features that came out of our beta feedback:

• Reduced load time and increased gameplay speed
• Increased spirit levels to allow for deeper spirit progression
• Increased number of spirit slots to allow players to have a greater variety of spirits
• Numerous Spirit Point requirement updates that allow your Spirit Points to go further

Importance of friends in Destiny of Spirits

You will truly experience the benefits of having friends around the world in Destiny of Spirits. The more friends you have, the better off you will be in-game! Having friends in Destiny of Spirits has a number of advantages, so go play and make a lot of friends all over the world. Interaction with fellow players from around the world will enable you to trade spirits and obtain unique Spirits only available in certain regions – your friends in Japan and Europe will have an entirely different set of Spirits that you’ll want to get a hold of to use in battle!

We’re dedicated to improve the game even after launch, so we will continue to listen to your valuable feedback. Please feel free to share your thoughts after playing the game too, we’re always listening.

Please stay tuned for more information about the game and future events for Destiny of Spirits!

We here at 17-BIT are ecstatic to announce we’ll be bringing the same seat-of-your-pants space shooting gameplay of Galak-Z to PS Vita. Since each game of Galak-Z is a unique, randomly-generated adventure, you’ll be able to dive deep into a fresh experience anytime you have a free moment, no matter where you are.

Counting From One to Infinity

As we designed Galak-Z, we realized a funny thing — we kept building onto one main level rather than adding new levels. Typically, we’d be building new levels left and right to express new gameplay concepts, but with Galak-Z, we were focused on how each new enemy, trap, plant, and weapon fit into the mix. So we kept mushing them together in one big level. It was glorious, and it was known as “the cave.”

Why did the same environment stay fun for so long? What really matters in Galak-Z is the interactions between all the moving parts. Combat with intelligent squads, getting attacked by a hostile environment, weighing the risks of a deadly magma pool versus the sheer style of knocking some hapless enemy into it… As long as we kept switching it around, it kept being interesting.

The endless fights helped us learn how the environment should work. In the same way that water erodes rock, seeking the path of least resistance, we bumped and nudged the curves of our walls until we started to understand what made a room feel real good to move around and fight in.

That hand-worn level became the guidebook for our level generator, which now helps to replicate the work we’d been using intuition and experimentation to craft. We have a library of rooms hand-designed to fly around in. The rooms are filled with potential spawn points for the traps and enemies. We do it by hand to guarantee the objects are placed in interesting and organic ways; you want that self-defense turret to have a good angle on any intruders, right? The rooms are then selected, randomized, and connected to form a dungeon. Launch out from your mothership, and you’ll find yourself entering a new and dangerous space cave on each mission.

Forebears

We’ve been inspired along the way by many of the “new wave” roguelikes. In particular, we’d like to give a shout out to Spelunky and Don’t Starve.

Spelunky works so well as a handheld game, and we can’t put it down. Spelunky’s superpower is the extremely rich interactions between every last object in the game. When you’re collecting rocks to dislodge spiders to set off arrow traps, you’re pulling on a deep well of knowledge gained purely by watching the rules of the game grind against each other, and expressing it in a natural way. Every miserable, hilarious, catastrophic death doubles as a big chalkboard lesson in How The Game Works.

Spelunky is also great at giving satisfying play sessions of anywhere from three minutes to three hours. The union of the roguelike structure and the pick-up-and-play nature of a handheld resonated with us. It makes us even more excited to get Galak-Z on the go.

Don’t Starve’s survival aesthetic has had a big impact, too. We love the way it encourages you to set long-term goals for each play session — “I’ll work towards building my science station this game” — then distracts you with unexpected troubles. The progression, in which you learn more and more about the tech tree and find new pieces to add to your mix, has inspired our thinking about our own utility belt of abilities, upgrades, and power-ups for the Galak-Z fighter plane.

On the Next Episode…

We’re still building our ultimate space anime fantasy. We’ll keep the combat tight, the missions intense, and the villains dastardly. So, keep your engines hot as we push ever closer to our launch of Galak-Z for PS4 and PS Vita later this year. Until next time, Space Ace!

Hullo, I’m Jamin Smith, Community Manager and writery person over at Born Ready Games. I’m here to announce that Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut will be heading to PS4 later this month. If mechs, space, and blowing things to smithereens with mechs (in space) are your thing, read on.

Strike Suit Zero is a space combat game that harkens back to the days of Wing Commander, Freelancer, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter — all the classics — but with a mech twist to the dogfighting, and a next-gen lick of paint. At the heart of our game is a ship that can transform from a traditional fighter to a lethal suit of space armor: the Strike Suit. This really changes up the core concept of dogfighting, allowing pilots to transform, turn 180 degrees, and unleash a barrage of missiles without having to go through the laborious procedure of ‘jousting’ that older space combat titles relied on.

The Strike Suit was designed by Junji Okubo (Appleseed: Ex-Machina, Steel Battalion, Infinite Space), who has a very functional approach to mechanical design. As such, the Strike Suit unfolds much like a real piece of machinery would; there are no Michael Bay-esque transformations here.

U.N.E. Frigate from BornReadyGames on Sketchfab.

Fans of Homeworld will also be pleased to hear that we’ve enlisted the services of Paul Ruskay for the Strike Suit Zero soundtrack, too. Paul has collaborated with Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia (Tales of Innocence, Gunslinger Girl: II Teatrino) in bringing the soundtrack to life, resulting in an interesting blend of East meets West — a notion that is apparent in all facets of the game’s design.

The development of the game was put under a bit of strain over Christmas when our studio was trashed by some pretty serious flooding. The river Wey here in Guildford burst its banks on Christmas Eve, and our studio (and poor neighbours Hello Games) was submerged in flood water.

Worry not, however. While lots of equipment and personal items were lost, we were able to rescue our machines in time, and successfully moved the team upstairs where development got back on track as quickly as possible. As such, Strike Suit Zero is well on track for its March launch.

We’ve furnished PlayStation.Blog with some never-before-seen concept art from Strike Suit Zero: the Grados Cruiser, Pegasus Cruiser, and concept enemy Fighters can all be seen below with notes from our Lead Artist, Dan Lodge.

Grados Cruiser
The Grados cruiser is a bit of a Born Ready art team favorite. We’d love to build this ship and see that massive fixed cannon in action one day. Check out the distinctive design of the rear hull and the engine housings.

Pegasus Cruiser
A little more streamlined than the Argama U.N.E cruiser found in Strike Suit Zero, the Pegasus was designed as a colonial frigate hunter. I think Junji really nailed the engine design on this one.

Fighters
Junji sent us a good range of proposed designs for fighters. These are some of the designs that didn’t quite make it in.

You can also check out a 3D model of the U.N.E. Frigate, which has been re-modelled and upscaled for the Director’s Cut. You can get up close and personal, and bask in the glory of those extra polys in the embed above.

Thanks for reading! For more information on the game, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Troy Baker, the man who brought Joel to life, has discussed the recently announced Last of Us movie and whether he'd like a role.

The studio's co-presidents are still cagey on the details, however.

In a conversation with IGN, Sony's Scott Rohde discusses the departure of Amy Hennig from Naughty Dog, noting that "people change, business changes, things change."

A new set of screens showcases the day and night cycle of the upcoming prequel, along with the second-screen app.

PlayStation Nation,

It is with mixed feelings that I inform you that I will be stepping down as President and CEO of SCEA effective March 31, 2014. This is a result of a mutual agreement with SCEA, and I leave knowing that the PlayStation brand has never been stronger, PlayStation 4 momentum continues to accelerate, and the future will only get brighter for our gamers.
Serving PlayStation fans for the past 19 years has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my career. Your passion for gaming inspired me every day.

I want to thank you for constantly pushing PlayStation to deliver breakthrough gaming and entertainment experiences, and to never settle for “good enough.” The embodiment of this commitment can be found in the PS4, which has quickly become the #1 next-gen console worldwide…thanks to you.

We’ve shared many memories over the past two decades and I’ll always be grateful for your support.

Thank you,

Jack Tretton

Jack Tretton will be stepping down at PlayStation on March 31st of this year, to be replaced Sony Network Entertainment's EVP and COO.

Ex-team members talk about what might have come from multiplayer, plus what happened in the end.

We knew they were coming, but that doesn't make them any less unfortunate.

Hideo Kojima says that in making MGO accessible for a worldwide audience, his studios are taking heat from its most successful market.

The core TowerFall experience demonstrates the richness of simplicity. With only three basic tenets of play — movement, shooting, and dodging — this multiplayer arena celebrates the thrill of pure competition. TowerFall Ascension, coming to PS4 on March 11th, retains this fine-tuned fun while also expanding on it. A heart-pounding, co-op Quest mode has joined the fray, alongside time-based Trials that help players master the art of shooting glorious, pixelated arrows.

Quest mode, playable alone or with a partner, pits players against waves of monsters. These monsters range from scythe-wielding warriors to leaping globs of slime. Each monster poses a distinct threat to the players, but nothing compared to the threat that the two players pose to each other.

With the danger of friendly fire whizzing within every loosed arrow, part of the fun of Quest mode is keeping your partner safe. Players with an eager bowstring may find their fellow archer out of lives and unable to assist with the remainder of the wave. Smart players will divide and conquer, and stay wary of launching attacks in the direction of the other.

A partner’s arrows can be a boon, however, when played at the right moment. Players can fire arrows for their friend to pick up, leading to layers of strategy in arrow conservation and exchange. Similarly, players can plan how they distribute power-ups during the match, as treasure chests will appear to unveil extra arrows, bombs, wings, and other valuable tools of war.

But nothing beats the thrill of launching an arrow from across the arena and slaying a wandering ghost, or stomping on a floating eye from above. The design of the monsters makes each wave more exciting than the last. Slow-moving blobs give way to enemy archers that are more than capable of plucking an arrow out of the air and launching it back at the player. With a limited number of lives to survive all the waves, Quest mode is a game of high stakes and tremendous rewards.

The newly added Trials also enrich the experience, enabling solo players to better understand shooting, movement, and using a stage’s looping pathways to their advantage. Each Trial tasks the player with destroying a number of straw dummies placed throughout the stage. Destroying them under a certain time limit will unlock shiny medals. Earning the best time, of course, requires a near-miraculous execution of every stomp, every shot, and every jump, often demanding players to unleash several attacks in a single leap.

These Trials are as addictive as they are difficult. Figuring out the exact course of action is just the first step to mastering each challenge. Actually playing through the course is another thing entirely, though restarting a challenge takes less than a second and encourages players to keep trying and go for the gold.

The new Quest and Trials modes make TowerFall a more robust offering for its arrival on PS4 next week. But they only sweeten an already delicious core, in which a single arrow can make the difference between victory and defeat, and the best moments can make for rather noisy tournaments on the couch.

The release date for Watch Dogs has leaked ahead of an official announcement, thanks to a new trailer.

Hello there! Mediatonic here, checking back in on Playstation.Blog after a long absence. Some of you may remember our PSN Minis. If you do, it’s highly probable that we love you. If you don’t, that’s okay, too!

We’re thrilled to lift the curtain on our return to PlayStation platforms with Foul Play, coming to PS4 and PS Vita! In this encore performance, we’re thrilled to announce a cross buy launch, hand-in-hand with some exciting new difficulties and optimization for each platform.

Foul Play is our theater-based beat ‘em up where Victorian Daemonologist, Baron Dashforth, recreates his adventures for the stage; brawls and all!

No expense has been spared for the Baron’s one-night-only spectacular show, and it’s a game that rewards performance over pummelling, as every strike and combo has to keep an eager audience entertained.

You don’t have a conventional life bar, but a “Mood-o-Meter.” Keep it filled with audience pleasing action, and you’ll be met with cheers, whoops, and hats in the air! Miss your cues, get beaten around by the adversarial actors, and you’ll find yourself booed off stage…

Join the Baron and his assistant Mr. Scampwick in co-op play wading through hordes of combat trained actors in a variety of menacing (and/or ridiculous) costumes.

The various plays of the night represent the scarcely believable, but ENTIRELY ACCURATE tales of Baron Dashforth banishing daemons. The lovingly crafted sets vary from the automatons of Atlantis to werewolves on the misty moors of Somerset — even a cult inadvertently starting the great fire of London!

Now we’re in the process of making sure everything looks great on the Vita display and in full 1080p for PS4 with our 60 FPS animations. We’re not quite ready to announce what day will be opening night just yet, but if you’ve got any other questions I’ll be happy to answer them in the comments!

We had a lot of fun playing with the conventions and limitations of the theater for such a grandiose tale. All in all, we can’t wait to bring our brawler, characters, and humour to PlayStation. If you want so see how we’re getting on, check us out on Twitter, Facebook, or our official website!

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has revealed why the game's protagonist is called Solid Snake.

New screens and details flesh out the new aspects of the upcoming online team-building mode.

Japanese action-RPG import to get North American release.

Digging in a dumpster behind a GameStop might net you tossed gaming treasure. Or it might just be garbage...

We are very excited to announce the details of Killzone Shadow Fall’s first multiplayer expansion: The Insurgent Pack.

The expansion pack is full of exciting new features for multiplayer including a brand new Character Class, 3 new abilities, 3 new weapons and 2 new game modes.

The Helghast government has been secretly funding The Black Hand, the operatives of which have been infiltrating Vekta City. The VSA has also started a programme that sends saboteurs disguised as refugees to the Helghast side of the wall. These insurgents are playable for the first time in the brand new Insurgent Expansion, which includes:

• The Insurgent – a brand new class with two unique abilities: Hack and Steal.
• 3 New Abilities – The Scout, Support and Assault also get additional abilities
  • E-Pulse emitter – a deployable beacon that sends out an e-pulse making it difficult for enemy units to install automata in that area
  • Tactical Echo emitter – a deployable beacon that send out a Tactical Echo from a fixed location making the area hard to infiltrate by hidden enemy units
  • Guard Drone – The Assault gets a stationary Buddy drone; deploy it in one place and it guards the location from a ground level.
    
• 3 New Weapons – Welcome old friends and new with this pack of weapons for the Scout, Assault and Support:
  • M82 – the classic assault rifle of choice from Killzone 2 and 3 is back!
  • L512 SMG Pistol – this amazing machine pistol makes your tactical secondary weapon of choice that much more punch
  • Sta14 Rifle – The sniper rifle of many battles past adds to your long distance sniping arsenal.
    
• New Single Player Elite Mode – The nightmarish difficulty of Elite Mode will test the hardest of warriors
• New Online Collectibles – Find the online collectibles crates in game for rewards
• Insurgent Personalisation Pack –
  • 1 OWL Skin
  • 3 Spotlight Moves
  • 1 Voice Over pack containing HGH and VSA battle chatter voices

The Insurgent Pack will be available on the Store in April for €9.99. Of course, you get it for free with the Season Pass, which gives you all the essential Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer DLC at the best value.

But don’t worry; we’ve got something to help you pass the time until The Insurgent Pack comes out. When we revealed MP at gamescom, we promised you that all of the DLC multiplayer maps for Killzone Shadow Fall would be free – and the first two are now on PlayStation Store for you to download! The first of these free map packs includes two very distinct maps inspired by key locations from the single-player campaign, and are also completely compatible with the game’s Custom Warzone Feature. Check them out in these brand new trailers.

The Cruiser map is set in a decommissioned VSA cruiser full of narrow, labyrinthine passages and interconnected compartments. Perfect for close-to-mid-range combat, the key to owning this map is identifying and dominating its many choke points.

Then we have The Hangar which takes place in the hangar bay of one of Helghan’s vast and lofty mining spires. This wide-open map combines large exposed spaces, perfect for sniping, as well as alternative routes to seek out and secure for total domination.

All of this sounds exciting but still on the fence? Or maybe you have some friends you’ve been trying to convince to give Shadow Fall a go? There’s a FREE multiplayer trial going on RIGHT NOW (ending March 11th) that’s the perfect way to check the game out, master the new free maps, and whet your appetite for the upcoming expansion. Best of all: PS Plus will NOT be required to participate in this free MP week!

To sweeten the offer even more, Killzone Shadow Fall will be available at $39.99 through 3/11 at Amazon!

We hope you enjoy the first of these free maps – keep an eye out on PlayStation.Blog for more coming your way this year.

All of us here at Double Eleven are excited to announce that PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is coming to PS4 and PS Vita this Summer, and we can finally start to talk about it!

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is a twin-stick shooter that’s as much about blasting things as it is about exploration, puzzle solving, and collecting things. Within Shooter Ultimate, players interact with environments that run an advanced fluid dynamics simulation. These interactions are needed to solve puzzles, overcome enemies, and progress through levels.

For those who remember the original PixelJunk Shooter games, Ultimate combines the campaigns of Shooter 1 and 2 into a single experience. It certainly doesn’t stop there, as we’ve done a ton of work on top of that to make this the third game in the series!

So here’s our list of nine things that hopefully make our PixelJunk Shooter worthy of the title “ultimate.”

1. Full Visual Upgrade on PS4

When we were trying to decide what a PS4 version of Shooter should look like, we knew that it needed to remain true to that classic, razorsharp, vector-based aesthetic — which continually threw new ideas at the player — while still being able to stand besides modern PS4 games. From a gameplay perspective, we wanted to make combat more intense, engaging, and overall provide for a more rewarding experience.

So, we decided to introduce real-time environment lighting, along with a host of new visual FX for things like projectiles, explosions, thrusters,and more. And it didn’t stop there — we’ve also worked on making the fluids look even better by increasing the resolution of the particles, improving shaders, and adding anti-aliasing to the edges of the fluids. We’ve also revisited the color palette, and color grading has been added to every scene, which hopefully makes it look and feel more immersive.

2. A Redesigned Ship on PS4

Something that a lot of people loved about the ship in Shooter 1 and 2 was the way it managed the relationship between momentum and resistance to changes in motion. This is not something we wanted to mess with, but we did want to improve the visual feedback to the player, to make that relationship more accessible.

To achieve this, we decided to introduce a 3D ship, which allowed us to add animations for aeronautical maneuvering that gives better visual feedback. The ship is also treated to the newly introduced real-time lighting, as well as the other visual improvements.

3. 60 Frames-per-second on PS4

For the uninitiated, higher frame rates capture much more of the action every second, so there’s much less opportunity for action to blur when you’re in the thick of it. Behind the scenes, our physics and fluid dynamics simulations also run at 60 FPS, meaning that the game is more responsive to how the player interacts with the various environments. It also improves on the control feedback and responsiveness.

4. Awesome Environments on PS Vita

One of the most understated aspects of the Shooter series of games was the highly complex fluid simulation. Most of the puzzles in the game require the manipulation of various fluids (water, lava, magnetic fluid, acid), each of which are made from several thousand particles to get the simulation looking perfect.

The computational power to run this has even given some quad-core PC processors issues, so bringing this game to a portable handheld was always going to be a major challenge. This has all been made possible thanks to some excellent research and development by our team, and we’re really excited that we can bring this experience to PS Vita.

5. One Seamless Experience

PixelJunk Shooter introduced us to the Yellow Dart, and its mission to save trapped scientists. PixelJunk Shooter 2 picks up exactly where the first left off. In PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate, you can enjoy an uninterrupted and complete experience, with all the new features introduced in Shooter 2 — such as the super spin — across all chapters.

6. A New HUD

Ultimately, we wanted the HUD (heads-up display) to be more intuitive and informative. After evaluating the original HUD elements, we also realized that too much screen real estate was being used up — that was particularly problematic on PS Vita.

The newly designed minimalist elements have a level of opacity, which allows for more action to be seen. More so, we thought about what other information the player should know and we’ve added new elements to reflect this.

7. Cross play

As gamers, we love it when consoles and handhelds work well together. So cross play was one of the first things we looked into. Now you and your friend can play together, without both of you needing the same device.

8. Cross Save

Another thing we find useful as gamers is cross save functionality, and this is something we’ve added to Shooter Ultimate. With this, you can take your save game on the move on Vita, and then continue your experience at home, with all the new graphical effects on PS4.

9. New Scoring System

We’ve reviewed the entire scoring system, and without giving away too much, we’ve hopefully balanced it to accommodate those who are just starting out, those that enjoy competitive play, and to those that would challenge their friends on the leaderboards.

We’re really pleased with how PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is taking shape, and we can’t wait for you to grab it on PS4 and PS Vita this Summer.

Featured Releases Now Available, Week of 3/4/14

Check out what’s new on Sony Entertainment Network’s ultimate entertainment services! Read more below.

Music Unlimited Highlights

• The new solo album from one of music’s most in-demand producers, Pharrell Williams, featuring the Oscar® nominated song “Happy.”
• Rick Ross’ 6th album that includes an all-star list of guest appearances from Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Big Sean & more.
• Glee star Lea Michele’s much anticipated debut solo album, a deeply personal insight into the actress who suffered the loss of her co-star boyfriend, Cory Monteith, last summer.
• Coldplay’s brand new single from their upcoming album Ghost Stories, out just in time for summer on May 19th.

For further exclusive access to all the new album releases – see details here.

Video Unlimited Highlights

Action and drama and crime! Oh my! It’s been a busy week for the Video Unlimited service. A newly-released Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Hunger Games rental for 99¢ and the crime-thriller The Bag Man. Don’t forget the special Oscars promotion that gives you $5 in wallet cash back for every $20 you spend. See all the details below in today’s New Release Recap!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Release this Friday, with a bow in hand, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), returns after winning the 74th Hunger Games. Katniss and her fellow tribute, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), embark on a “Victor’s Tour” of the 12 districts only to discover that they aren’t yet out of harm’s way.

The Hunger Games: Just in case you haven’t had enough of Katniss, see her in the first Hunger Games for only 99¢! Katniss must rely on her sharp instincts and survival skills to survive the arena against highly-trained tributes from other Districts. As she battles for survival, she must also cope with her conflicting feelings for both Peeta and Gail. Whom will she choose? And will she make it out alive? Find out by watching it today!

Vikings | Season 2*: Who doesn’t love a historical drama? The second installment of the epic sword-and-shield drama returns with new characters, epic battles and even a love triangle!

The battle begins when Ragnar and King Horik join forces against Ragnar’s brother, Rollo. The brothers’ relationship unravels and there can only be one victor. However, Ragnar’s family troubles don’t end with his brother: the beautiful Princess Aslaug arrives in Kattegat, bringing with her a surprise that strains his relationship with his wife, Lagertha.

*Available in the US only

Want to get more Video Unlimited scoop on all the new releases? View further details here.

Time for a little update on how SOMA is doing. (A brief summary for those who don’t already know: SOMA is a sci-fi horror game from the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent that will tackle unsettling questions about consciousness. It will be released on PS4 in 2015.)

Before I get started, I should say a few words about the new teaser trailer, “Theta”. This video showcases a few in-game scenes along with fresh voice work. Our hope is to give you a taste of the feel and atmosphere that SOMA will have. It also contains a few clues on what the game’s story will be about.

SOMA’s current status

We are currently about a week away from the alpha of the game. This is a build in which a bit more than half of the full game is playable. It’s currently clocking in at around 5 hours, meaning the final game will end up at 8 hours or so.

A game like SOMA is a bit different to have in alpha than most other games. Normally, a game relies on a core mechanic that creates the basic engagement. While graphics and sound are important, you can mostly test the game pretty early on with only temporary assets in place. This lets you get a feel for the game at a very early stage. Not so for us.

We can play our game at last!

SOMA doesn’t rely on a core gameplay loop – such as shooting baddies or jumping platforms – to create a sense of fun. Instead, you’ll take part in a wide range of activities; it’s impossible to narrow it down to one. You’ll search for notes, solve puzzles, hide from dangers, explore unsettling places, take part in strange events and sometimes just run away. All of these come together with the graphics and soundscape to create a larger whole. This means that we couldn’t properly test SOMA without having all of these things implemented in a fairly final state. Making matters worse is the fact that the game lets things take their time; slowly building up the atmosphere, narrative and themes. It is hard to condense all this into a short prototype; a large chunk of the game is required.

Because of this, we haven’t been able to get a feel for how SOMA plays until very recently. The alpha is our first opportunity to really find out what the game is like. This means that we’ve had to take a lot of the design on faith, simply hoping that it’ll all work out. So it came as a great relief to us – when we’d managed to pull together everything for a pre-alpha test a few weeks ago – to find out that the game does hang together.

This doesn’t mean that we’re totally happy with everything. Now that we know how our game plays, we also know what needs to be fixed. There are a number of goals that we wanted to hit with SOMA, and now marks the first time we can properly evaluate how well we’re doing with them.

Goal 1: The feeling of playing a narrative

It’s important that SOMA is constantly drenching the player in storytelling. We need to make sure there is always a red thread of narrative running through the game. We don’t want you to say “Oh, here comes a puzzle section”, but to constantly feel as if you are being told an interactive story. Getting this right is tricky as there still needs to be some challenge in progressing, but not so much that solving a difficult puzzle becomes your sole focus. Now that we’re close to alpha it’s possible for us to test this and tweak where needed.

Goal 2: A coherently crafted world

When creating Amnesia our setting was basically just “Old castle where supernatural stuff happens”. This allowed us to get away with just about anything and explain it with “because, magic”. But in SOMA we are building a world that is supposed to be tied into the real world and to make sense. Our goal here is to make proper sci-fi and not just a magical fantasy with futuristic designs.

This raises a whole load of issues that we might not have cared about in Amnesia. Puzzles that don’t make sense in the world, tech levels that vary throughout the game, basic physics principles that are broken and so forth. When you have a large part of the game playable a lot of these become visible, and we intend to squash them all!

Goal 3: Gameplay with plenty of variation

As mentioned above, SOMA does not rely on a core gameplay loop. There is a very good reason for this: we don’t want the player to become too fixated on figuring out the game’s underlying abstract systems. We want players to approach the game from how it looks, sounds and feels. In order for this to work the game’s different scenes can’t have the same setup, as that would make you familiar with how everything works. Instead, we need to keep things fresh and avoid repeating ourselves.

Now that we are in alpha we can more easily identify patterns and similarities in scenarios. If anything overstays its welcome it needs to be replaced by something else.

Goal 4: Deep, disturbing themes that make you think

A crucial design goal for us is to allow a deep exploration of what it means to be a sentient being. The first step towards doing this is to make sure that SOMA’s gameplay, plot, characters and setting reflect the subjects we want to discuss. If you approach the game in the right way, some seriously unsettling implications should be become clear.

And here lies the problem. Are we getting through to you in the right way? Will the really interesting details just rush past you, or will you stop and give them some serious consideration? What’s crucial here is that we don’t simply spell everything out for you, but that you can come to conclusions on your own. These sorts of things take a while to come together, and it’s not until this alpha that we’ll get a clear idea as to how it is working out.

Goal 5: A pervasive sense of horror

Finally, the game should be utterly terrifying. We do not want you to calmly stroll through the various environments; it must be emotionally tasking to progress. We want this blanket of oppression and fear wrapped around the entire experience. Sustaining this through eight or so hours takes some finesse – if we repeat something too often, you’ll get used to it and be able to predict upcoming events. The buildup must take time without becoming dull, and there needs to be a nice rhythm of ups and downs throughout the journey.

All of these are things that we’ve had a hard time getting a grip on until now. Now we can playtest a complete experience. A task that requires a dark room, a pair of headphones, an empty house and a tired, slightly hallucinating developer. You can’t leave this up to reports from your playtesters, you must experience the atmosphere firsthand to truly understand it.

The road left to travel

That should give you a good sense of the kinds of issues we’re currently struggling with. Hopefully it has also given you a bit more insight into what kind of game SOMA is.

We still have a long way to go; SOMA is still a year or so away from its 2015 release. We feel we are on the right track though, and we think this is shaping up to be our studio’s best work so far — by a wide margin.

Oh, and sometime soon, we’re going to reveal a big secret about SOMA. Keep your eyes open for it!