When we first announced Project Athia last year, we were overwhelmed with joy from seeing the excitement and conversations shared by fans online. Now, at long last, we’re ready to share the game’s official title and logo with you:

I’m also excited to share a brand-new scene from the game, which you can view here:

Play Video

Forspoken is an action RPG where you will take on the role of Frey Holland, an ordinary young woman who must harness her magical abilities to survive in a fantastical and dangerous land called Athia. As Frey, you will embark on a thrilling, other-worldly adventure and face treacherous trials to unravel the mystery behind the unknown land of Athia and awaken something much more from within.

As you’ll see in the new game clip, Frey is able to traverse the world with incredible speed and fluidity. I can’t wait for players to experience firsthand just how satisfying it feels to move through Athia, scaling cliffs, and leaping across ravines in the future.

Frey takes center stage in Forspoken, and we’re delighted to announce that actor, Ella Balinska is performing the character. We were looking for someone who could convincingly portray Frey’s dynamic character, and we knew immediately that Ella was the perfect person to play her. From the beginning, Ella understood the themes and concept of the game and was able to channel this in her performance to bring Frey’s character to life. Not only is Ella talented and well matched to the role of Frey, but she is also extremely passionate about Forspoken as her first video game project. 

And there it is! On behalf of Square Enix and the entire Luminous Productions team, we hope you enjoyed the sneak peek. The creators are working hard around the world on the development of Forspoken, and we can’t wait for you to experience Frey’s story in 2022.

Read more

It’s a very exciting time here at Hazelight. We’re about to bring our baby into the world. Next week, on March 26, the wild, funny, and magical co-op action adventure platformer It Takes Two will blow your minds away. I’m not kidding! You’ve never seen anything like it.

Play Video

Catch up on the latest trailer, then keep scrolling for new gameplay info.

Don’t take my word for it though. Just download the Friend’s Pass version of It Takes Two from the PlayStation Store on PS4 or PS5 on March 26. It’s free. Give it a go in local couch co-op – or have a friend download the Friend’s Pass as well to play online – and you can try out the entire first level. If you enjoy it, only one of you needs to buy the full game to keep playing together.

One aspect of It Takes Two that I’m really passionate about is the way we’re marrying story and gameplay in innovative ways. I’ve talked a lot about this since we revealed the game. But today, I wanted to dive into the backstories of our two main characters, Cody and May, to give you some more examples of how this comes to life.

May wields a sickle against enemies while Cody rams as a tomato.

In the beginning of the story, we learn that Cody and May are about to split up. Their daughter, Rose, is devastated. She desperately wants them to stay together. Feeling she can’t share her worries with her parents, she turns to a book titled “Book of Love” and two dolls that she’s created to represent her parents. When she wishes for them to become friends again, Rose unknowingly and magically transforms them into the dolls, teleporting mom and dad into a magical world.

Here, they encounter Dr. Hakim, a living version of Rose’s “Book of Love”. He’s a crazy and passionate guy (kinda like me – I actually did the mocap for Dr. Hakim myself!) and claims that he’s promised Rose to fix their broken marriage.

Meaningful moments create a mark on us which we can easily recall at a later time.

Our own families and the people we admire provide endless inspiration when making a game like this. And while not directly related, games like Heavy Rain, Oxenfree, Xenogears, and Vagrant Story all contributed to the game’

No two dishes made in Nour: Play With Your Food are alike. A delicious interactive exploration into the aesthetics of food and drink, Nour lets you play with your food in ways your mother told you not to. This beautiful, chaotic yet comforting game demanded a soundtrack that reflects each player’s unique preparations and plating. What started as a soundtrack ended up as an instrument.

Play sweet melodies and manipulate the environment via random acts of cookery, rhythmic prowess, or even your singing voice. Beginner or expert, reckless or meticulous, every chef creates a song to match their pièce de résistance.

I’m Maximilian C Mueller, a musician and designer – and today, your maître d’Nour’s music. James Morrison (aka Fluke Nukes) and I cooked up a feast for the ears to accompany this feast for the eyes.

Ambience: Season to Taste

Adaptive background music to complement your dish.

The music heats up, cools down, rises, mixes, and melts. What you hear is a unique combination of ingredients cooked per ever-changing specifications set by the way you play; no two play-throughs will sound the same. Wreak havoc, show restraint, and so too will the audio.

Adaptive game music is often categorized as “horizontal” (e.g. the music changes when entering a room), or “vertical” (e.g., tempo increases or an instrumental element is added when entering combat). Nour’s music is diagonal and has a cherry on top. Player actions and their frequency comprise a measure of chaos used to generate a cohesive song from a large pantry of ingredients. Together with a dash of stochasticity and a pinch of salt, this fluctuating measure acts as a conductor, guiding the scene sound. Put simply, the dish you create creates the song.

Have a listen to some evolving music captured in-game while you read:

Marshmallow Flutes and Noodle Harps

Conjure food and make a melody, create a dish and make a song.

Each time a food is introduced into the scene, a sound comes with it. What does a marshmallow sound like? An airy flute! An ice cube? The high notes of a grand piano played staccato of course! It was great fun choosing these sounds and even more fun subjecting those sounds to the trials of gameplay. Don’t worry about playing sour notes; every button press is always in tune. Once in the scene, the foods act as percussion instruments, singing the sound that announced them on impact. I love setting up a pile of ice cubes and slamming something into them to create an icy physics music e

Hi everybody! I’m Greg Lobanov, director of Chicory: A Colorful Tale. I’d like to give you a peek behind the scenes at what inspired us while developing this game and what you can expect when Chicory: A Colorful Tale launches on PS4 and PS5 later this year.

When all of the world’s color vanishes in Chicory: A Colorful Tale, it will come down to you to restore it with a magical paintbrush. 

I’m a game designer and I really love making things; it’s my perfect zen place to be. And a part of that process includes meeting and talking with other creative people and learning about their processes and feelings. I wanted to encourage our players to engage their creativity and play this game in a more personal way. There might not be one right answer for anything, but that’s what makes this world so fun to explore.

This game’s unique painting mechanic was the starting point for the entire project. We wanted to center the player’s individual creativity at all times, and that decision had far reaching effects on every aspect of the story, world and puzzle design. 

The game is generous with giving the player options for personalizing their world. Besides being able to draw on everything all the time, you can also collect decor items and plants which you can place anywhere. All your art and decorating decisions are persistent throughout the adventure, which makes it extra rewarding to come back to an old place along your journey. Most side quests involve you creating something which leaves a permanent mark on the world, too, and often those things will attract the attention of other characters and cause them to gather somewhere new. And by the way, there are a lot of side quests (Chicory is an adventure game after all)! You can get to know some of the 100+ characters in the game as you deliver their mail. Or you can spend some time in art class recreating masterpieces. 

We’ve taken full advantage of the new DualSense wireless controller to bring a sense of depth to Chicory’s gameplay in a way we’ve never experienced before.  You can paint using the touchpad, and the controls are specially arranged to make it easier to do that. There is also an option to flip the controls so left-handed players can draw with their dominant hand if they prefer. Not to mention we’ve added lots of soft texture rumbles which makes the whole thing feel warm and cozy, like petting a cat. 

Playtesting this game has revealed really interesting diversity in the way players engage with it. Some players come for the adventure, and love discovering new places and solving tough puzzles. Other players soak into the cozy, laid-back world and take their time painting things without worrying too much about what their next task is. Making a game for all kinds of folks was important to us, but also a tricky thing to balance, which is why we wanted to