Hello again! Just a quick note to tell you that State of Play returns next Wednesday, October 27 at 2:00pm PT / 10:00pm BST. As usual, you can watch our broadcast live on Twitch and YouTube. Hooray!

This time out, we’ll be focusing on announcements and updates for upcoming third-party releases headed to PS5 and PS4. 

The show is looking to be ~20 minutes or so, and will share new looks at previously announced games, plus a few reveals from our partners around the world. 

See you Wednesday!

Regarding Co-streaming and Video-On-Demand (VOD)

Please note that this broadcast may include copyrighted content (e.g. licensed music) that PlayStation does not control. We welcome and celebrate our amazing co-streamers and creators, but licensing agreements outside our control could interfere with co-streams or VOD archives of this broadcast. If you’re planning to save this broadcast as a VOD to create recap videos, or to repost clips or segments from the show, we advise omitting any copyrighted music.

Welcome to the crew, PlayStation! At long last, we have a release date. On December 14, Among Us will be launching on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Traverse through space and attempt to hold your spaceship together alongside your other crewmates, but beware – there could be Impostors on board. Or maybe… you’re the Impostor?! There’s only one way to find out.

The PlayStation release of Among Us comes with all of the previous content, a slew of new updates, and an exclusive Ratchet & Clank cosmetic in the future. Let’s talk about it!

Find the liars – or be one

Your crew’s success depends on your social deduction abilities. Think you know who the Impostors are? Can you find them before they murder you? Or maybe you’ll be wrongly ejected. Out in space no one can save you – good luck finding out the truth.

Crossplay

Have friends on other devices? No worries. The PlayStation version of Among Us allows for crossplay so everyone can play together. 4-15 player lobbies are supported with online multiplayer.

Anyways, that’s all the info I have to give you for now. If you’ve read all the way through, thanks. More seriously the entire team at Innersloth want to thank everyone for all of the support – whether you picked up the game ages ago or are just thinking of playing it now, we’re happy to have you! It’s already been a year since we were just a team of three and our game randomly got big, but we couldn’t be more grateful. 

See you on December 14.

Welcome to this new blog about our forthcoming game—House of Ashes! I’m Barney Pratt, audio director here at Supermassive Games. Today I am going to explain our cinematic approach to the music for this game and the series more widely – the scares, the shocks, and how we developed a signature motif that can span space and time.

Each of the Dark Pictures Anthology games has a completely different narrative, and as such has a completely different soundtrack. Whether it is character themes, location themes, subconscious clue giving or deliberate misdirection, the music is the strongest audio element to follow and drive the wider narrative arcs as the story develops.

We use a hybrid system of film and game music techniques to fully immerse the player in the cinematic experience of the Dark Pictures. Each moment of each level has bespoke music cues to precisely frame-match the action, suspense, intrigue, fear or dread not only for that precise event, but also for each related event over the wider story arc. We need to deliver a seamless cinematic musical journey through all of the choices, paths, dilemmas and key turning points of the story.

The style of music originates from the story. For Man of Medan we looked at “youth”, the swaying waves of the sea which dictated the time signature and the fierce, violent brutality of events to come. For Little Hope we took a historical approach, researching the instruments of 1692 New England. These lonely solo instruments played as a lament to the dark times of the Salem witch trials and it was a huge challenge to deliver the cinematic mechanics of a horror game with such a thin and constrained score. The theme for the main character in Little Hope was no exception. Jason Graves, the composer for the series, composed a simple six note motif on an aged piano which in itself offered such a deep explanation of the lead character’s part in the story and clues to the outcome (no spoilers!).

Witchcraft by Jason Graves

First early development Deathloop kick implementation

Here to help explore Colt’s calamitous kick with me is Jérôme Braune, game systems designer.

Braune: In these comparison images, you can see that in an early version of the kick the foot orientation was different and the leg was displayed more in the center of the screen. To free some space and prevent visual noise around the crosshair, the leg position and foot orientation was later moved further to the right. 

Foudral: When we were finally happy with the visuals of the kick, a lot of work was put into making it responsive and easy to use in all si

Hello! Alex here, I’m a designer and the technical lead at 2pt Interactive. As many of you may know, we’re the little indie studio making the challenging, physics-based game Heavenly Bodies.

Ahead of our fast-approaching 2021 release (put it in your diaries, folks), I wanted to take some time to share why we’re so excited to be working with the PS5 to make our passion project.

A quick refresher

For those who aren’t as familiar with it, Heavenly Bodies is a game about cosmonauts, the body, and the absence of gravity. You move the limbs of a weightless, physically simulated space engineer (or two, in local co-op) to assemble and maintain structures and systems aboard a rickety space station. Your assigned tasks will often appear straightforward, but without gravity to keep you grounded, even the most mundane requests will require wit and willful coordination to perform.

Make sense? Okay, Welcome aboard.

Why we love using the DualSense wireless controller

At its heart, Heavenly Bodies has been created with the love for rich detail, physicality, and tactility. We’ve engineered a uniquely challenging movement scheme which lets you manipulate each limb of your weightless body. While (very) tricky at first, these flexible controls paired with physically simulated environments make for a world that begs to be tinkered with.

With a game that quite literally requires you to feel your way through the environments, you can only imagine our excitement with the opportunity to use the features of the DualSense controller. With the triggers used to grasp your cosmonaut’s hands and a chaotic, zero-g environment where bumps and thumps are inevitable, it made so much sense for us to use the adaptive triggers and haptic functions to transport you into the floppy suit you see on screen.

Feel the palms of your hands… at your fingertips

The best way to play Heavenly Bodies is by using your cosmonaut’s hands. You’ll need to grip with the triggers to grab onto objects and to push yourself off walls. The DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers are remarkable at communicating what objects and surfaces are within your cosmonaut’s grasp.

For example, when doing some weeding in the oxygen garden, you’ll feel the delicate stalkiness of dry plants compared to the thick, hard metal framework of the station.

And this scrunchy piece of paper? You can bet it feels scrunchy.

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This week the team celebrates 5 years of PlayStation VR and shares more games they almost missed out on.

Stuff We Talked About

• PlayStation VR
• Sheepo
• Moss 2
• Jackbox Party 8
• Jett: The Far Shore
• A whole bunch of games we almost missed out on

The Cast

Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE

Tim Turi –  Manager, Content Communications, SIE

Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE

Read more