Last week, we asked you share the epic landscapes of feudal Japan in Assassin’s Creed Shadows using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
irmarie_diaz shares Naoe riding a horse through agricultural fields in the fall.
visualcam9 shares Naoe wandering through cherry blossoms
RivalsUniverse shares sunlight streaming through a bamboo forest
DexM_ds shares Naoe perched atop an icy winter landscape
TakaSanGames shares a castle surrounded by cherry blossoms
tim14009498 shares Naoe atop a roof overlooking a settlement in fall
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Heights
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on April 9, 2025
Next week, look down below. Share breathtaking moments taken from great heights in the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
What is it? What’s the formula, the secret ingredient to make a VR game bring pure excitement and adrenaline to the players? How can we make them smile and go “wow” after they take off the headset? For us devs at Something Random working on Harpagun, it all comes down to a few simple elements. Let’s take it from the top.
Movement that matters: Speed, control, and immersion
Action games are all about movement. An issue mostly already solved in flat screen games but still problematic in VR. Some forms of locomotion allow for precision but are pretty slow and unresponsive. Others let you zoom around the locations, but can be uncomfortable. Those that are, are limiting or take you out of the illusion of “being there”.
In Harpagun we needed a system with a clear set of goals: comfort, simplicity, responsiveness, speed and immersion. In a proper arcade game players have to be able to react in a blink of an eye, immediately focus on what’s the most important, change their position to avoid danger or get a better shot at an enemy.
We managed to achieve that with our “pylon and anchor” system. Players move between sets of points with their eyes anchored to points of interest such as a path forward or center of the combat area. The movement is smooth but fast enough to be comfortable while allowing for total control of the battlefield.
Grab, smash, throw: The power of the Magnetic Ray
The first thing everyone wants to do in VR is to grab something and throw it. Sadly it requires the player to come very close to an object and can sometimes be very finicky and actually ruin the illusion of presence due to the limitations of the medium (mass of objects, pressure on hands etc.). But you need to do it. You need that interaction with the world and enemies, th
Last month we saw quite a few adventure games spring into action. What game from last month’s lineup was a fresh start? Some of the big new releases included Assassin’s Creed Shadows, MLB The Show 25, Hitman World of Assassination (PS VR2), and Split Fiction.
How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.
What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.
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Hey, everybody! Sid, Kristen, Brett, and I are back this week to discuss the new take on Pac-Man Shadow Labyrinth, the wonders of hand-tracking in PlayStation VR2, what it’s like to learn how to walk in Baby Steps, and their most played games on PlayStation.
Stuff We Talked About
- Next week’s release highlights:
- Koira | PS5
- Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos Remastered | PS5, PS4
- The Last of Us Part II Remastered | PC
- Shadow Labyrinth — Release Date (July 18 for PS5)
- Into Black (PS VR2) — Announcement Blog (coming soon)
- Masters of Light (PS VR2) — Hand-tracking update
- Baby Steps — Hands-on report
- Our top five most-played games on PlayStation
- PlayStation Plus Monthly Games April
- RoboCop: Rogue City | PS5
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre | PS5, PS4
- Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory | PS4
The Cast
Last week, we asked you to take a leap into Assassin’s Creed Shadows and share epic moments of dual protagonists Naoe and Yasuke using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
TakaSanGames shares Naoe in traditional Assassin white, in front of the Hidden Ones symbol
Evo_Pixel shares Yasuke striking with his katana in the rain
domo_vp shares Naoe framed by candlelight
Yuric83 shares Yasuke in ornamental armor emerging from shadows
calisarah1998 shares Naoe approaching a large red gate
Milz_VP shares Yasuke wearing a samurai mask in the morning fog
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
Baby Steps was first revealed to the world in June 2023, and upon first viewing it, I didn’t know what to think. Surprises are few and far between when you have been gaming for over 30 years, but the reveal trailer left me with perplexing emotions. I was in a mental tug-of-war between, ‘I’ve never quite seen something quite like this’ and, ‘Does this concept really have a leg to stand on?’ Well, after about an hour of playing the game, I was ten toes down.
The game starts with a snippet of exposition. You’re a grown man named Nate living at home, and without warning, you’re thrown into the game world. You’re taught how to walk and tasked with making it out of a cave that serves as the tutorial area, and then you take the first steps into the open world, with one goal in mind: make it to the mountain in the far off distance.
To the ends of the earth
This wasn’t a mountain separated by cut-scenes and different hub areas, but a specific geographical goal I would have to advance to in real-time, creeping closer with every step. This realization swept me off my feet.
“It started on a much smaller course,” Said Bennett Foddy, one of the creators of Baby Steps. “But just as a test, I made a level that was 100 meters wide, and it was immediately clear to us that that was going to make for much more interesting gameplay, involving strategic route-finding as well as tactical foot placement. And surely it wouldn’t be that hard to make an open-world game!”
Step-by-step
Once the shock of the world’s scope wore off, I instantly bypassed the direct route for something more interesting that caught my eye and headed for what appeared to be a carousel in the distance. Since there is no map or waypoints here, where you go depends on you as the player. With campfires in the distance serving as markers for the ‘true’ direction you should head toward. As I walked through mud, puddles, sticks, and stones, the DualSense controller features began to shine, as every texture was met with the appropriate sensation and the oddly satisfying crunch of the earth and other material under my feet.
“There’s a cutting-edge experimental music system that works in sync with the walking sim,” Foddy said. “I think we’ve woven a pretty thought-provoking story from Nate’s situation as well. And the game is packed full of other surprises.”
Since I breezed through the earlier tutorial and started making tracks through a bizarre, seemingly desolate carnival, I spied a mysterious object atop the carousel, which led me
The wait is over! Masters of Light is now one of the first games to introduce full hand tracking on PlayStation VR2, pushing the boundaries of immersive gameplay like never before. As the creator of Masters of Light and co-founder of Coven, I’m beyond excited to bring this revolutionary update to PlayStation fans.
Learn specific gestures to teleport, block meteors and fight!
Harness magic with your own hands
Imagine stepping into the world of Masters of Light and casting spells with nothing but your hands—no controllers needed. This is the power of PS VR2’s new hand tracking technology, allowing you to unleash beams of light, summon shields, and control energy like a true celestial warrior. Every flick of your wrist, every precise movement, translates into real-time spellcasting, making battles feel more intuitive, immersive, and exhilarating than ever.
Masters of Light features high energy first person combat where focus, timing and strategy are keys to victory.
A new standard for immersion
When we first envisioned Masters of Light, our goal was to make players feel truly empowered. From the very beginning, we built our combat system around fluid, natural gestures—inspired by self defense moves. Now, thanks to PlayStation VR2’s advanced tracking capabilities, players can experience the game as we originally imagined: with pure hand movement, free from controllers.
Frantic hand tracking moves will keep you physically engaged in the fights. You WILL break a sweat!
The evolution of Hand Tracking in VR
At Coven, we’ve been developing hand-tracking games for years, pushing the technology forward with every project. Bringing this feature to PS VR2 was an incredible
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