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

In Operation: Tango, you and a partner act as either the agent, Angel, or the hacker, Alistair, working together through complex puzzles to help save the world. This asymmetric co-op has you playing in the same world but through completely different views, and no matter which role you play, Operation: Tango ensures that you get to experience all the beauty this near-future world has to offer. 

Building a world that is seen from two completely different perspectives is not an easy task, but Operation: Tango navigates these waters with ease as you get to explore the “real” world as the agent, or the digital one as the hacker. The shining quality is what you and your partner bring to this experience; having to rely solely on verbal communication to relay what you are seeing to your partner, there are countless ways to have fun in a world you’re working together to save. 

(Left) The Agent places tiles on the interface to create walkable paths for the hacker. (Right) The Hacker must navigate a virtual labyrinth in order to disable a vault’s security system

Whether you are a casual gamer, a seasoned games veteran, or even a speedrunner, Operation: Tango strives to keep the game visually interesting for all ages and skill levels, while also providing unparalleled asymmetric gameplay. Each area of the world is built with unique themes, colors, and inspirations, really lending both the agent and hacker the global feeling of travelling within this near-future world. Balance is key in any asymmetric world, and Operation: Tango makes certain that there is no “main character” but equal partners, and equally interesting worlds to explore. 

From beautiful natural landscapes to the electronic vibes of the internet, Operation: Tango takes a lot of inspiration for the art style and feeling from Keiichi Matsuda’s short film “Hyper Reality” as well as the style of Canadian animator Robert Valley, who is famous for animating for the band Gorillaz. This blends into a world that is filled with augmented reality and interfaces that feel alive in the hands of either the agent or hacker. 

(Left) Keichi Matsuda’s “Hyper Reality” overloads the viewer with an extreme portrayal of augmented reality full of advertisements and redundant labelling. (Right) Operation: Tango balances augmented elements with the need to guide players and focus their attention on information relevant to their mission. 

The art style translates from not just the characters and the landscapes around them, but also to the puzzles themselves. Making it feel like a new technology but with familiar puzzle concepts is one of the things Operation: Tango does best. You and your partner have to really work together to communicate what you’re se

Hi everyone! One of the best parts of working with the indie game developer community is learning what goes into the experiences they are creating. Today, we are excited to have some of them share their stories with reveals and updates on seven indie games coming to PlayStation.

Work with a friend to solve complex puzzles, make your own path in a surreal adventure, and experiment with sounds and colors in unexpected ways. The games in today’s announcements bring such a variety of aesthetics and gameplay, I’m confident that everyone will find something to capture their imagination.

Keep an eye here on PS Blog as we bring you reveals and updates on indie games every half hour, starting at 7am PT / 2pm GMT / 3pm CET.

Launching Destruction AllStars has been an amazing experience for the team at Lucid. We’re truly humbled by the community’s reception to the game and are extremely grateful for all the support we’ve been seeing on social media. 

It’s thanks to the community that some of our first patches and hotfixes have been able to target and improve certain areas of the game, as well as improving our direction on future patches. Today, we wanted to run through our progress since launch as well as revealing more about the road ahead for Destruction AllStars, including our first season of content!

We’ve been responding to a wide range of community feedback around the game as fast as we can, some of the highlights of these changes include being able to earn Destruction Points from in-game challenges, adding new server regions and adding higher rarity character skins for you to further personalise your AllStars. Community feedback is important to Destruction AllStars as we’re committed to building a game that you’re excited to play, week on week. 

In our last blog post, we outlined the new content coming to the game in the form of featured playlists. Over the next few months, we’ll be changing up the rules a little on our core game modes and inviting players to try a new perspective during online matches. Our first featured playlist, Mayhem 8v8, went live last week and we’ve been listening to everyone’s thoughts and impressions of the game mode whilst jumping in for a few games ourselves. Stockpile 4v4 is our next featured playlist on the horizon and we’re eager to see how you’ll all tackle the smaller, more focused team size when trying to maintain control of your banks.

Alongside our featured playlists, we’re still delivering brand new content each and every month. These include our Challenge Series which are single player experiences based around an AllStar and their Rival. They offer a small cinematic experience along with some gameplay challenges to earn some awesome cosmetics! You can learn more about our Challenge Series in one of our other blog posts.

Bluefang’s Challenge Series has just gone live. It’s time to explore more about his backstory and motivations for competing in Destruction AllStars whilst demolishing your way through the arena in his Hero Vehicle, Shredder. Face off against Bluefang’s Rival, Angelo Avello, in seven gameplay challenges and earn exclusive cosmetics including an epic skin and emote. Be sure to let us know which AllStar you’d like to see featured in a Challenge Series in the future.

Oh, and we’re hosting a Double XP Weekend starting this Friday. It’s a great chance to earn AllStar Coins and grab some of our Heroic or Legendary skins.

Introducing Seasons in Destruction AllStars

Destruction AllStars was built from the ground up to deliver content to the community at regular points throughout the year. We knew that we’d always want to be adding to the game and giving you more things to do whilst keeping old game mod

Today, we are very proud to debut our new story trailer for Returnal with you all and reveal more information about the game’s story ahead of next month’s release. This PS5 exclusive combines explosive action, roguelike elements, and cinematic storytelling to create a dark, sci-fi action thriller.

Storytelling is a big new feature to Housemarque games and we have a bold story to tell. Our goal with Returnal is to tell a mysterious, layered, and haunting story that – like our explosive action gameplay and roguelike twists – is something you discover, replay, and rethink on every play.

Our narrative direction and storytelling philosophy with Returnal is that the story should not compromise the gameplay. Instead it should rationalise, deepen, and blend with it. We’ve already touched upon the game’s combat systems, so in today’s blog post I’ll shed more light on some of Returnal’s mysteries and the challenges Selene faces from a narrative perspective . . First, make sure to watch our Story trailer below.

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1. An unauthorised recon mission gone wrong

Our story follows Selene, a Greek-American ASTRA deep space scout who is a complex and layered character that is driven to a fault, intelligent, and resourceful. For the first time in her career she goes against orders to travel to the alien planet Atropos to follow the “White Shadow” broadcast signal. Upon arrival she crash lands in an alien forest. Here she discovers the ruins of an alien civilisation filled with statues, gates, xeno-tech, and alien corpses. But she’s not alone. The planet’s surface is teeming with hostile creatures that attack Selene on sight, as well as other threats left by the world’s former inhabitants

Across Atropos everything is hostile, alien or mysterious, leaving Selene to be one of our sole human elements. So it was important for us that our lead was a compelling, complex character that players would root for and want to understand better. I am very happy to share that Selene is voiced in a raw and grounded performance by Jane Perry (recently Diana Burnwood in the Hitman Trilogy), while her visual appearance and facial capture is performed by Anne Beyer.  

We wanted Selene’s suit to be in stark contrast to the dark and outlandish world she’s stuck in. Bright and clean design is a canvas to show her journey on, an