Lessons from the Final Frontier: Writing for Star Trek in VR

When I got the opportunity to work as narrative designer on the upcoming VR game Star Trek: Bridge Crew from Red Storm Entertainment, a Ubisoft studio, I knew I was in for the project of a lifetime. Who wouldn’t be excited about working on a brand new platform, developing a game unlike anything we’d ever made before, and using one of most beloved franchises of all time? So much frontier!

In fact, the development process for Star Trek: Bridge Crew was an awful lot like an episode of one of the TV shows; a whole crew of talented individuals encountering never-before-seen challenges, and finding creative solutions with science. (Except we never had to beam anyone down to dangerous alien planets. Even though there were plenty of times we wanted to.)

Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a co-op VR game, enabling up to four players to serve as the critical officers on the bridge of a brand new Federation starship the U.S.S. Aegis, and the iconic classic bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Players can choose the role of Helm Officer, Tactical Officer, Chief Engineer, or, of course, Captain. Though it can be played single-player, we designed the game primarily with a social, cooperative experience in mind.

As the principal writer on the project, I knew there were going to be some surprises along the way, and some lessons to learn as we made the leap from more traditional game development into the relatively unknown space of social VR. If I were to write a post about all the things we discovered, it’d be too long for anyone to read. But here are three quick highlights:

Pacing

Often times as game developers, we’re concerned about making sure players always have enough going on to keep their interest. Whether that’s through the high-octane tension of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, or the wealth of gameplay opportunities of an Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry, keeping players engaged is a critical part of game and narrative design.

With the power of social presence in VR, though, we found with Star Trek: Bridge Crew that we had to give players the time and space to fully appreciate the whole experience. Sometimes we found ourselves wanting to put more pressure on players, to shorten the distance between objectives, or to reduce the time players had to make a decision.

But hands-on player testing helped us discover just how much we needed to slow down.

When you first load into Star Trek: Bridge Crew’s main menu, you start in an inspection shuttle, following a short orbit around the beautiful U.S.S. Aegis in dock at a space station. When we first started showing the game to the public, it wasn’t unusual for players to spend five minutes or more just sitting in that shuttle, staring out at space. In fact, one of our guys who ran a lot of demos said not once, but twice, players had to pause to wipe tears from their eyes.

And this was just our main menu.

The sense of presence, of actually being there is so strong in VR, that we as developers had to keep reminding ourselves to make room for our players to just enjoy the thrill of being on the bridge of a starship.

Directing Player Action

The All Seeing Eye/Talking Head is a fairly common mechanic games use to make sure players know what they need to do to accomplish game objectives. (You know, the guy who calls in over the radio and tells you that the room you’re in is on fire and you need to find a way to get out.) But in a shared, virtual environment we found that the experience of having a talking head on the screen wasn’t compelling enough, and didn’t really feel right for the Star Trek franchise.

In Star Trek: Bridge Crew you are, after all, supposed to be an expert crew, entrusted with a starship. It just didn’t seem right to have a Starfleet Admiral constantly showing up on your viewscreen, reminding you of everything you were expected to do.

To that end, we decided to lean heavily on the Captain player as our primary method of communicating mission objectives. Through an interface on the Captain’s chair, the Captain keeps track of everything it takes to accomplish a particular mission, and is responsible for communicating all the relevant information to the rest of the crew.

In addition to mission requirements, however, the Captain also receives information about different ways objectives might be accomplished. In some cases, the crew is faced with decisions that have no clear right answer, and it’s up to the Captain to make the call that seems best to them.

We’re putting a lot of faith in our captains, but it seems to have been the right call; when we’ve given demos, it’s been a beautiful thing to see four complete strangers come together as a crew under the command of a decisive Captain.

Interaction of Experts

The Star Trek franchise often centers on the interaction of various experts, and we wanted to make sure that our players got that experience, even if they’d never seen a single episode or movie before. To that end, we spent a lot of time designing each officer’s station and crafting the language we used on our Captain’s information panel so that when players are talking to each other, they have a shared vocabulary that makes it easy to communicate, while also sounding authentic to the franchise.

We have, for example, a specific protocol that players follow to take the Aegis and Enterprise to warp. The Engineer is responsible for providing enough power to the engines, and then starting a process to charge the warp coils. The Helm Officer plots a course and then aligns the ship with the proper vector. But the warp coils can’t hold their charge forever, so the Captain needs to coordinate the process to ensure that everyone does the right thing at the right time. It’s an easy process when you’re just hanging out in Federation space. It might be a little more stressful when you’re trying to rescue civilians while being attacked, and also trying to escape a star that’s about to explode.

Each of the individual actions is simple, but combining each of them together into a process, and wrapping the actions in language that sounds like classic Star Trek really make for a convincing experience when the crew is working together.

(And, of course, when they aren’t, it still sounds pretty convincing when the Captain is yelling at the Helm Officer to punch it, and the Helm Officer is yelling at the Engineer to give him more power.)

There are many other things we learned over the course of developing Star Trek: Bridge Crew, but hopefully this brief overview gives you an idea of just how exciting the future of VR is. It truly is a new frontier, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the great things that we’re going to discover.

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The Origins and Inner Soul of Salt and Sanctuary

The 2017 Game Developers Conference kicks off this week with the Independent Games Summit, and if all has gone according to plan, Michelle and I will have just finished delivering a postmortem of Salt and Sanctuary, our well-received 2D Soulslike that we launched nearly a year ago on PS4.

The hardest part about putting together a postmortem is figuring out how to cover years of work and what to even talk about. Michelle and I may have spent years of our lives designing, creating, polishing, iterating, redesigning, polishing, crunching, and polishing Salt and Sanctuary, but how do we figure out what the interesting parts were? After designing more than 600 weapons, armor pieces, spells, and items, drawing more than 10,000 sprites, animating and scripting more than 100 characters, and building a massive, seamlessly interconnected game world of a few dozen regions, it’s hard to know what’s interesting anymore.

So I did the smart thing: I asked you. More accurately, I asked Twitter. And we got a bunch of questions! Here’s what we learned:

We had some concept art. Because it’s just Michelle and me, I generally don’t do a lot of concepting — when there’s no discipline gap between concept and final art, it’s just a more optimal use of time to just start drawing game art. I did end up making some concept art when I was stuck on planes, which happens here and there. Michelle is much more into concepting. Her concepts are mostly digital though, and also done while traveling, or through her annual Monster of the Day project each October.

Our story had some origins. If nothing else, Michelle and I are geeks for A Song of Ice and Fire, and Salt and Sanctuary was loads of House Greyjoy: drowned gods, blessings of salt, and that cold, morbid philosophy: “what is dead can never die.” Otherwise, I’ve been pretty fascinated by pre-modern “science” — where the supernatural could be as much a candidate to explain the world as the natural. Much of the story and visual aesthetic came from medieval murals to ptolemaic diagrams.

I didn’t plan out a lot of the actual coding. There were times that I felt I should have, but after nine years of making very similar games, I kind of have a pretty tried and true technique, mostly revolving around tools.

I love to talk about tools. Imagine you were creating Pac-Man. How would you represent the world map? When you’re just starting out in Computer Science 101, text files made in Notepad are a great place to start:

There’s a simple system! “#” for walls, “.” for pills, “*” for power pills, “G” for ghost spawn points. I’ve used systems like this. Great! But what if we wanted to add some variety to the scenery? Lighting? A boss battle? Our ASCII system is great if we want to represent 4 or 5 simple things, but anything more complicated just blows it right up.

In the case of our ASCII Pac-Man maps, Notepad is a tool. And as far as tools for game content go, Notepad is rock bottom. So what to do? Make better tools!

Salt and Sanctuary took no fewer than eight discrete tools. A few of them were new for Salt and Sanctuary, and a few have evolved since The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. The cornerstone is the character animation editor, upgraded for Salt to support skeletal animation.

Then there’s the sprite sheet atlas editor, the map editor, and the destructible objects editor, all updated from Charlie Murder. And new for Salt and Sanctuary are the dialog editor, loot editor, monster editor, and skill tree editor. That’s right: I’m so in love with these special purpose editors that I made one just for the skill tree, and I have no regrets.

Yeah, I like talking about tools. And it’s not hard to see why: maybe 90% of Salt and Sanctuary is just content that Michelle and I used those tools to make. And a lot of the game logic even emerges through the creation of these tools, like the code to render the map, skill tree, or animated character.

Jumping off is hard to do. The prototyping phase is a wonderfully free phrase of experimentation and laying groundwork: defining things like “what is a door?” “What is a boss fight?” “What is loot?” “How high do I jump?” Once that groundwork is laid, it gets really easy to make content, but really hard to fiddle with that groundwork.

For instance, let’s say I can jump a four-tile gap. Then — after building half of the world map — I decide that the game feels too floaty and I need to tighten up the gravity constant. But that change allows the player to jump a five-tile gap. Well, now I’ll have to audit the whole game up until that point to make sure I haven’t introduced any game-breaking new shortcuts (Speedrunners will know that such shortcuts still found their way in!).

Working with your wife is great. We are often asked what it’s like working with your spouse. It’s a bit like working with your coworkers, only more personal. You share not only your work but your life. It all blends together and when you’re doing what you love with the person you love, it’s amazing. It’s not without its challenges, but those we take like any relationship. Communication is key, and we’re not perfect, but we get better every day.

Paying homage to Soulslikes while still finding our own voice was a critical challenge. I looked at ways games exist on a common landscape: incredibly inspirational games like Dark Souls, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Ninja Gaiden Black existed alongside our own The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, Charlie Murder, and what would be Salt and Sanctuary. Drawing from a landscape of concepts, themes, and mechanics, we were able to build a cohesive action game that drew the brawly feel of Dishwasher and Ninja Gaiden, the world progression of Castlevania, and the obscure lore and character progression of Dark Souls.

Some things went wrong. Self publishing may have given us more freedom than we were used to. In our early days, localization was all handled for us by our publisher; my job was just to make sure the game rendered it correctly. With self publishing, this responsibility to localize falls on us, and we hadn’t quite figured it out in time. I did implement all of the text rendering, and I set up some tools to automatically machine translate our text to test out the rendering, but we didn’t have proper translations. With a zillion other things to worry about and crunch over for launch, I guess I sort of convinced myself that maybe machine translations aren’t the worst thing. Well, they are. And we’re still fixing them. Sorry about that.

Some things were unexpectedly amazing. We could not possibly have predicted the level of excitement from gamers and support from streamers and content creators after announcing Salt and Sanctuary. We’ve always been very grassroots about marketing, more having to do with being terrible at self-promotion than any kind of intentional PR style. Having the support of streamers and YouTubers was so crucial. I don’t think Salt and Sanctuary could have been the success it was without these people. A huge thanks goes out to them.

Working with Sony was seriously great. Working with Sony was absolutely a transition for us. Before PS4 launched, we were a tiny studio that made exclusives on other platforms. But the new console generation brought a lot of uncertainty to indie developers like us (a lot of which was about our tech), and sitting down with Sony really made a fantastic impression.

Indie game developers struggle with motivation. This was a sort of meta-takeaway: while organizing the questions I got from Twitter, I noticed that a lot of them were asking how we kept motivated. My semi-reliable trick is to switch up tasks a bit when I get worn out, but I know this only works to a certain extent. At any rate, if you’re trying to make games and struggling with motivation, know that this is something we all deal with!

Finding motivation through other developers and even other creatives in other industries helps a lot. We always come away from game conferences, after meeting up with other devs, recharged and ready to get back to making awesome stuff.

Game development has some pretty insane ups and downs, but with hard work, perseverance, and a little bit of classic insanity, we’ll all pull through.

PS Vita owners are patient, loyal, and fierce! We’re sorry it’s taken so long. The port is being handled by another studio, but it’s still in the works!

It’s been a wild time in development and we’re still reeling post-launch of Salt and Sanctuary almost a year ago. Thank you so much to PlayStation and all the gamers who believed in us. Thank you for playing our game. Your support truly keeps us going.

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Rogue Trooper Redux Coming to PS4, Pays Homage to Classic Comic

Today we’re very excited to announce Rebellion’s first new game since we launched Sniper Elite 4 on Valentine’s Day!

If you follow Rebellion you might already know that we don’t just make games. We also publish the legendary British comic 2000 AD, famous for characters like Judge Dredd, Sláine, Nemesis, and — of course — Rogue Trooper!

Coming soon to PS4, Rogue Trooper Redux is a loving remaster of the acclaimed 2006 third-person shooter based on the comic book of the same name.

This year 2000 AD celebrates its 40th birthday, and we can’t wait to bring one of its most memorable figures to a whole new generation of PlayStation players.

New to 2000 AD? Never played the original game? Here’s a little intro to our blue-skinned soldier…

Who is Rogue Trooper?
Created by beloved writer Gerry Finley-Day and groundbreaking artist Dave Gibbons, Rogue Trooper has been a comic book mainstay since 1981 and has even included contributions from Alan Moore, writer of Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

Rogue Trooper tells the tale of the sole-surviving Genetic Infantryman (or “GI”), a blue-skinned, bio-engineered soldier on a mission to avenge his fallen comrades across the blasted, chemical-poisoned planet of Nu Earth in a remote corner of the galaxy.

Why does he fight?
Bred for war by the Southers in their endless conflict with the colonial Nort regime, the GIs were the only troops that could fight on Nu Earth’s surface without respirators or sealed HAZMAT suits, giving them a huge advantage in combat.

Aware of this threat, the Norts conspired with the Traitor General to set a deadly trap for the GIs which later became known as the infamous “Quartz Zone Massacre.”

Of the hundreds of GIs who made the drop, Rogue was the only survivor, taking the bio-chips from the bodies of his three closest comrades so they might survive to be implanted in new GI bodies.

From that day on he had one mission — hunt down the Traitor General!

What makes Nu Earth so special?
A planet-wide conflict across petrified forests and polluted plains, a yawning black hole that dominates every skyline… I’m not sure there have been many more dramatic stages for a war story!

What makes the set-up unique though, is Rogue himself.

While Rogue walks alone, he fights as a team. With the sentient bio-chips of his fallen buddies Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm inserted into his rifle, pack, and helmet, respectively, Rogue has access to a huge variety of unique upgrades and abilities that not only drive the game’s tactical shooting, but pays homage to the essence of the comic.

All this makes for a unique action game that feels as good now as it did in 2006. We can’t wait to show you more of Rogue Trooper Redux and maybe even convert a few more of you into GIs!

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Venture to the Red Planet in Unearthing Mars, Out March 7 on PS VR

Hi everyone, this is Eric from Winking Entertainment, a company you might not be familiar with. This is our first outing on Playstation, and we’re excited to bring our PS VR sci-fi adventure Unearthing Mars to the United States.

Let me start off with this: I’m happy to announce that Unearthing Mars will be launched digitally on March 7!

So what is Unearthing Mars? Is it a shooter, a puzzler, or some sort of space sim? To be honest, it is all and none of those things at the same time.

The Unearthing Mars experience is comprised of 10 different stages, each with its own unique gameplay mechanic. Each stage also advances the story of a space expedition team trying to unravel the secrets of Mars. Players will take the role of the Co-pilot, a member of the retrieval team sent to recover fragments of the mysterious Phobos satellite, believed to hold clues to the possibility of an ancient civilization on Mars. As you can tell, this isn’t a documentary-type VR experience, but really something that plays more like a good science fiction novel (or novella, in our case).

In the first half of the game, players will experience operating a Mars landing craft vehicle firsthand, as well as explore the surface of Mars on foot and via a rover vehicle.

In the latter half, there’s a lot more cross-genre gameplay as players discover a more esoteric side to the Red Planet, solving puzzles along the way and culminating in a first-person shootout that… well, I’ll let you guys experience that for yourselves.

With such a wide variety of gameplay mechanics in the game, production was quite a challenge. The production staff was split into four smaller teams, each responsible for a different game genre, or gameplay mechanic. Traditionally at Winking, a single product is worked on by a single team, but to tackle the challenges posed by making a new VR product, four different teams were necessary.

One team was responsible for the landing craft cockpit simulation, another for the driving mechanics of the rover vehicle; another for the adventures underground and on the surface, and finally a team that was brought in to execute the shooting stage.

The team also invested in facial and body motion capture equipment in order to make movements as fluid as possible. Unlike traditional console games, in VR everything holds an additional factor of realism, and in order to get the amount of detail required, adjustments were added by hand post-motion capture.

In order to ensure players experience the fullest immersion in the VR environment, the decision was made early on to have leave minimal on-screen UI, use full voiceovers to guide the player and tell the story. The team flew to record on-location in Europe, Japan, and Korea to provide natural-sounding native voiceovers.

We had the help of some very talented voice actors, and having been involved in the recording personally I recommend playing through the game in different languages (try the German voiceover).

To wrap things up, Unearthing Mars is a sci-fi PS VR game set on the Red Planet. It’s a smörgåsbord of game genres and mechanics that has something for everyone.

VR is an industry with amazing potential, and it’s great that through a wonderfully accessible platform like PS VR, everyone has the chance to tell their story in virtual reality.

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PS Plus Bundle: Buy 1 Year of Plus, Get 3 Additional Months of Plus and Showtime

We’ve got a cool bundle to share for new and existing PlayStation Plus members!

Starting today, if you purchase a one year membership through PlayStation Store, you’ll get three additional months of PS Plus and three months of Showtime through PlayStation Vue — a value of $111.95 — for a bundle price of $59.99. The Showtime offer is only available to new subscribers to Showtime through PlayStation Vue.

This promotion runs through March 31, 2017 while supplies last. To see the full terms and conditions of this offer, please visit our website.

As a member of PS Plus, you can enjoy benefits and features such as online multiplayer on PS4, free games, online game save storage, and exclusive discounts.

We continue to work on providing great offers and value for PS Plus members, so we hope you enjoy!

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3on3 Freestyle Hits the Streets Today on PS4

Every time I talk about 3on3 Freestyle, I feel compelled to reiterate what I and the development team at Joycity wanted from the moment we conceptualized this vibrant, street basketball game: engaging competition that came alive with a creative sense of expression and player bonding.

We always knew what we wanted, but how do you ensure that what you see in your design book makes it onto the court?

Making a game is a formidable challenge and you never know what to expect until gamers like you get your hands on the controller. We were excited with what we created in 3on3 Freestyle, but it wasn’t until we offered a month of closed beta testing in the United States, followed by three months of intensely focused open testing, that we were able to make the final game what it is and surpass what we thought could be achieved.

It all began a couple years ago with a steady vision, where we traveled to places like Venice Beach and Rucker Park in Harlem, New York, realizing first-hand that there was something distinctly special about these home-grown courts and — above all else — the colorful personalities that brought them to life. Fast forward, and observing real gamers and all their individual skills playing the game in all their glory led us to tweak an even deeper, more dynamic street basketball experience — as well as implement a better matchmaking system and report system.

It all came together, piece by piece, virtual game by virtual game. As we analyzed the beta environment and saw the ways we could improve 3on3 Freestyle in unexpected ways, we never stopped reminding ourselves that an air of authenticity was forever crucial. Sure this is a video game and dialed up for razzle-dazzle fun, but the core of the street scene is what it’s all about, and what better way to showcase this than to partner up with real-life Streetball team Ballup?

We knew we wanted to do something that drew on real-life athletes and their bold energy, and now that we had the game fully locked in place, the final piece was ready to be set: the incredible athletes at Ballup and the values we shared on all fronts proved to be a perfect fit, and we were able to work with Rise, their clothing brand, to integrate signature jerseys and shoes into the game.

Everything clicked with Ballup and is still going. For our launch trailer, we got ballers Grayson “The Professor” Boucher, Guy Dupuy a.k.a Easy J, and Chris Staples to visit our studio and play their parts, and even more exciting, we will be announcing soon which players will be making an appearance in the game.

Big announcements are on the way, but in the meantime, we’re proud to say the final version of 3on3 Freestyle is here, and in the end we’ve created an authentic, U.S. Street Basketball game — fun at its core, big and bold, where friends from all around come together to show their best game.

Pick your player, pick your style, pick your court, and bond with your team. This is 3on3 Freestyle.

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Vote for your Favorite: Assassin’s Creed Ezio Collection vs. Final Fantasy XV

For a few years now, our friends on the LATAM and Brazil teams have run “¡Vota Por Tu Favorito!” – a campaign where fans choose the next game to go on sale at PlayStation Store. We loved the concept so much here in the US, we’ve joined forces to bring “Vote for Your Favorite” stateside.

Over the next month, we’ll match up two different titles each week, along with their prospective discounts, and give PS Blog readers the sole power to decide which game we’ll set on sale that weekend.

Voting kicks off every Monday right here via PlayStation Blog poll. Only poll votes will be tallied. Comments, tweets or replies on our social posts do not count!

Up first, we’ve got Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection vs. Final Fantasy XV!

Immerse yourself in 15th-century Renaissance Italy as Ezio, the most iconic Assassin in the franchise. Play across the single-player campaigns and add-on content from three games: Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, and Assassin’s Creed Revelations.

Or embark on an awe-inspiring quest across the breathtaking and expansive world of Final Fantasy XV. Join Prince Noctis on a roadtrip to reclaim his homeland in the latest installment of a legendary series.

Select your favorite by voting below until Wednesday, March 1, 2017. We’ll announce our Week 1 winner this Friday, March 3! The winning title will remain on sale through the weekend.

Ready? Set? Vote!

And don’t forget to check back next Monday for Week 2’s contenders!

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GDC ’17: Creating Thumper’s Virtual Unreality

Thumper began as an idea back in 2008, when high-quality VR was just a fantasy. Last October, we were proud to release Thumper alongside PS VR. It’s been an honor to hear from so many PlayStation gamers who made Thumper their first VR experience!

Thumper | PlayStation.com

My co-developer Brian Gibson and I handcrafted our own engine, tools, and embraced risk as we developed Thumper. But perhaps our biggest gamble was deciding to add VR support to Thumper. In most VR games, you, the player, are a human interacting with a virtual environment based on our world. But the world of Thumper is abstract and alien. And you are a space beetle. Without any real-world frame of reference, we had to figure out what Thumper should feel like in VR.

First, we had to decide how large everything in the world is relative to the player. As a starting point, we tried making the player’s character (a space beetle) very large – approximately 15 meters wide in real-world units. This didn’t have the feeling we wanted. When you are this small relative to the game world, moving your head around results in little or no change of perspective. The beetle and in-game objects feel distant, detached, and lack intensity.

So, we made the player much larger. We tried making the beetle about the size of the player’s head. This made things more intense. In fact, it was too intense. At this size, crashing through the game’s many obstacles and sharp turns felt like getting smacked in the face! We thought it best to spare our players from this level of punishment.

Finally, we adjusted the player size so the beetle is about 40 centimeters wide in real-world units. At this size, the path the beetle travels down is just wider than your shoulders. It makes it feel like you’re sliding down a long chute in a children’s playground. As soon as we played the game like this, we knew the feeling was perfect.

A wonderful thing about VR is that visuals are no longer constrained to a static rectangular frame. Players can look around in any direction. We took advantage of this to make our boss encounters more epic in VR. In the image below, you can see Crakhed, the final boss of Level 1, as he looks in normal 2D mode.

But when you reach Crakhed in VR, he is four times bigger! At this size, he looms over the player and encountering him is more ominous and overwhelming.

We made many more minor adjustments to perfect Thumper’s VR mode. But a big technical challenge remained. On PS4, Thumper runs at 1080p and 60 frames per second. That translates to about 124 million pixels per second. On PS VR, we found that the best experience required the game to run at 90 frames per second. We also didn’t want to sacrifice visual fidelity, so our VR mode uses 1.4x super-sampling and high quality anti-aliasing. All that translates to about 366 million pixels per second. So to achieve our visual goals for PS VR, we had to find a way to triple our rendering speed!

Fortunately, with the help of Sony engineers, we were able to improve our custom engine and better utilize PS4’s graphics processor. It was one of the most difficult things we’ve ever done, but I’m proud to say Thumper runs at a rock solid 90 frames per second on PS VR. A nice side benefit of our intense optimization effort is that Thumper’s renderer became much more efficient overall. With the added power of PS4 Pro, you can play Thumper in native 4K at 60 frames per second – a staggering 500 million pixels per second. And if you play in VR on PS4 Pro, the visuals are clearer and even more immersive.

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Chess Ultra Coming to PS4 and PS VR This Spring

Hey everyone! I’m Kelly Willoughby, the lead producer at Ripstone Games. We’re a British developer and publisher, and we’ve got a whole bunch of PlayStation games in our repertoire. You might know the Pure series, including Pure Chess, Pure Pool and Pure Hold’em, or maybe titles like Stick it to the Man and Knytt Underground.

So here’s the deal: We’ve been secretly working on a brand new title created by our internal development team that we’d love to share with you today. We’re super excited to reveal that Chess Ultra, a sequel to our original 2012 hit Pure Chess, is coming to PS4 and PS VR this spring.

Chess? YES!

Chess Ultra is a massive step up from the original Pure Chess for the Ripstone team. Not only is the game going to be available in stunning 4K for PlayStation 4 Pro players, but PlayStation VR owners will be able to play the game in virtual reality. We’re super excited about that, as you might have gathered!

Each of the Chess Ultra environments look absolutely stunning in 4K, as you can see from the screenshots and the teaser trailer, and the chess sets themselves are just as slick. We’ve worked really hard to make every inch of Chess Ultra shine and we think you’re really going to get the wow factor when you boot up the game. Running at a silky smooth 60 frames per second with textures beautifully rendered using PBR (physical based rendering) this really is something special. Developing the game from the ground up with our internal team has allowed us to make the most beautiful chess game ever seen!

And of course, there are all the features you’d expect from a top quality chess game, and plenty more on top of that. There’s a huge amount of single-player content, including ten different AI levels, multiple environments and a variety of stunning chess sets.

Once you’ve shown the AI what you’re made of, you can always take the action online, and play against friends and other Chess Ultra players from around the world. We’ve got plenty of game modes to keep you and your friends entertained online.

If you’d like to see the game in action right this second, you’re in luck! We’re currently hosting a special livestream on Twitch, where you can play Chess Ultra against a Grandmaster by entering chess commands into the chat, and also ask questions about the game. How cool is that!

That’s everything we’re ready to share right now, but rest assured we have some big surprises up our sleeves that we can’t wait to shout about!

As the first internally developed game for PlayStation from Ripstone Games, Chess Ultra is extremely special to all of us here, and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on it this spring. Expect to hear from me again soon!

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PlayStation Blogcast 239: Bring Me That Horizon

We didn’t forget about you! This week, the gang weighs in on critical hit Horizon Zero Dawn. And a solemn promise from me: no more dark secrets. I heard you! Enjoy the show.

Subscribe via iTunes, Google or RSS, or download here

Stuff We Talked About

• Horizon Zero Dawn (no spoilers!)
• Titanfall 2 Live Fire Mode

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• Game Developers’ Conference
• Ghost Story
• Lightfield

Recent Episodes

• 238: Take Me Out to the Ball Game
• 237: Andromonauts
• 236: Hashtag Jacket Cat

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The Cast

Sid Shuman – Director of Social Media, SIEA
Justin Massongill – Social Media Manager, SIEA
Zac Minor – Sr. Social Media Manager, SIEA

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Send us questions and tips! blogcast@sony.com
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Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

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The Drop: New PlayStation Games for 2/28/2017

A world in beautiful ruin has been overtaken by machines. Humanity lives in scattered tribes, struggling to survive. And a single hunter uncovers long-buried secrets that could change it all. Welcome to the post-post-apocalypse of Horizon Zero Dawn, an action RPG that launches next week on PS4.

Developed by the technical masterminds at Guerrilla Games, Horizon Zero Dawn marks the studio’s colossal step into open-world adventure. Guide the hunter and outcast Aloy through gorgeous environments, battling towering machines with a variety of weapons. Hone Aloy’s skills, craft valuable items, and unlock the dormant mysteries humming within this vibrant new world.

For a full list of new games out next week, read on. And enjoy the Drop!

New Releases: Week of February 28, 2017

A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV

PS4 — Digital (Out 3/1)

Set in a fictitious 30 years before Final Fantasy XV, this game features retro-style visuals centered around a fast-paced combat system with influences from modern gaming. The in-depth combat system blends intense attacks, devastating magic, mighty summons, and unique companion attacks into a singular gaming experience through three diverse locations in the world of Final Fantasy XV.

ACA NeoGeo Nam-1975

PS4 — Digital (Out 3/2)

Nam-1975 is an action game released by SNK in 1990. It was one of the first ever games released on NeoGeo! Players take on the role of U.S. Special Forces soldiers braving a harsh battlefield as they try to survive a series of deadly firefights.

Dying: Reborn

PS4, PS VR, PS Vita — Digital

Old School puzzle-solving gameplay reminiscent of adventure game classics mixed with impressive first-person visuals that make for a gritty and immersive experience. Fans of movie series such as Saw need look no further: a mysterious fish-head nemesis, a grudge, a series of never-ending trials, and a shocking ending will satisfy all your needs.

forma.8

PS4, PS Vita — Digital (Cross Buy)

forma.8 is a unique take on the Metroidvania action-adventure formula, with a striking visual style and a huge world to explore. As the small exploration probe forma.8 you’re stranded alone on the surface of an alien planet. Separated from your companions, you have a life or death mission to accomplish: find and recover a lost, powerful energy source before it’s too late. Are you ready to uncover the truth?

Ghost Blade HD

PS4 — Digital

Ghost Blade HD is an intense bullet-hell shoot ’em up game with satisfying and addictive score-based gameplay. Designed with a modern graphic style and special effects, Ghost Blade also features an awesome two-player mode! Ghost Blade HD is easy to learn, yet hard to master.

Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride

PS4 — Digital

Within the shadow of an ancient forest, on the bottom of a foggy valley, stands the lonely village of Ravenbrook. The folk there are cheerful and diligent, yet warily superstitious. They surround the village with countless charms to keep the evil spirits at bay, for on the other side of the forest, there lies a seemingly bottomless pit, known as the Abyss. It is the place the villagers of Ravenbrook fear most…

Horizon Zero Dawn

PS4 — Digital, Retail

Horizon Zero Dawn is an exhilarating new open-world action RPG exclusively for PS4, developed by the award winning Guerrilla Games (Killzone). Take on the role of skilled hunter Aloy as you explore a vibrant and lush world inhabited by mysterious mechanized creatures.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

PS4 — Digital

Put on your wide-brimmed hat, grab your weapons, and embark on an incredible adventure in the gothic-noir world of Borgovia, where mad science threatens the fragile peace between monster and mortal. Be Van Helsing, monster-hunter extraordinaire and save the day with your charming and beautiful companion, Lady Katarina (who happens to be a ghost, by the way). Explore the savage wilderness in the mountains and the soot-stained brick districts of a grim metropolis twisted by weird science, and don’t forget: you might never know who the real monsters are!

Stranger of Sword City Revisited

PS Vita — Digital

From the present day to the parallel world Escario. Survive in the land of polar night! Enjoy the tried and true fundamental charms of the Dungeon RPG genre such as character creation, dungeon exploring, and item collecting.

Suikoden IV (PS2 Classic)

PS3 — Digital

A prequel to the acclaimed role-playing series Suikoden, Suikoden IV reveals the origins of the Rune of Punishment. Although set in the past, Suikoden IV has no shortage of innovation, as it features a Tactical Formation System and more than 60 playable characters.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

PS4 — Digital, Retail

Explore Earth one billion years in the future in the science-fantasy setting of Numenera. Discover the Ninth World built on the bones of extinct, hyper-advanced civilizations and leave your own mark on it. Make thousands of essential choices, face the consequences, and meet death incarnated as you seek the answer to the ultimate question: What does one life matter?

The Walking Dead — The Telltale Series: A New Frontier

PS4 — Retail

Telltale’s award-winning series returns with its third season: A New Frontier. Continuing the emotionally powerful storytelling seen in Seasons One and Two, we return to one of gaming’s most beloved characters: Clementine. We see her story through the eyes of Javier, a young man determined to find the family taken from him.

WRC 6

PS4 — Digital, Retail (Out 3/3)

On a race track, it’s the car that makes all the difference. In a rally, it’s the driver. WRC 6 puts you to the test: fog, mud, punctures, night racing, engine breakdowns… you have to deal with it all.

• Jose James – Love in a Time of Madness
• THEY. – Nü Religion: HYENA
• Smino – blkswn

• Fences

• Taken- February 27 at 10/9c (NBC)
• Taboo- February 28 at 10/9c (FX)
• Conan Without Borders- March 1 at 10/9c (tbs)

The information above is subject to change without notice.

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