Hello, Neighbors! Ari from tinyBuild here. Wow, it’s crazy to think that our CEO Alex penned a post for this same blog almost four years ago to announce that Hello Neighbor would be coming to PlayStation. Well, today I am both honored and excited to pick up the torch (or flashlight, in this case) and announce to you all that Hello Neighbor 2 will be coming to PS4 and PS5! But not only that, we’re doubly excited to announce that the Hello Neighbor 2 beta is coming on April 7, 2022, and you can get exclusive beta access with your pre-order.

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At the heart of Hello Neighbor lies a carefully constructed layer-cake of social horror and family-friendly fare. There is a clear dichotomy between these two genres, but the narrative walks the line by burying its secrets along with its trauma…sometimes quite literally.

We approach horror in a more delicate way, doing away with the straight in-your-face classic horror aspects of the grown-up world. We’re working with more subtle things; creepy neighbors that you cannot trust, mysterious things that go bump in the night, a rural town with a secret, and the feeling of unease when you may be just about to uncover a skeleton in somebody’s closet.

In Hello Neighbor 1, your goal was pretty straightforward; break into your creepy Neighbor’s basement to uncover what he was hiding, but what happened after that? In Hello Neighbor 2 you’ll be playing as Quentin, a reporter investigating a series of missing persons cases in town. Including that of Nicky Roth, the original protagonist of Hello Neighbor. Be sure to grab your comfiest shoes, your journey will take you far beyond the basement and will have you trekking all over the new open world of Raven Brooks to get the scoop.

With an expanded world comes an expanded roster of all-new characters to meet, surveil, and escape from.

Hey everyone, I’m Adam Robezzoli, one of a handful of developers creating Samurai Gunn 2. We’ve been pouring ourselves into this work for years, and we’re super excited that you’ll be able to play it on PS5!

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Instant Death Fighting Game

Samurai Gunn 2 is a one-hit-kill platform fighter. It has that easy pick-up-and-play feel that makes it great for parties, but contains a wide possibility space of movement and technique for hardcore enthusiasts of the genre. Today I want to share with you my personal picks for the coolest aspects of our game.

Like any good fighting game, first up has to be the characters. We’ve got forest spirits and demon hunters, vengeful ghosts and a wandering bodyguard, a revolutionary princess and an autonomous suit of gunnpowder armor …and we’ve only revealed half the lineup so far.

Check out the image above for all 18 Samurai we have planned. 👀 So cool!

Friends Characters

My second pick for “coolest thing in our game” is… Friends characters.

We’re fortunate to have made good friends working in indie games over the years. And those friends also happen to make some of our favorite games ever. They’ve graciously allowed us to pay homage to their characters, and we’ve worked hard to do them justice. With totally unique abilities and movement, they play way differently than the Samurai.

First up is Ana from Spelunky 2. Ana can climb ropes, throw bombs, and even has her signature back whip. The Spelunky 2 versus stage is even procedurally generated with destructible terrain.

The Inquisition is at the heart of Salt and Sacrifice (coming to PS5 and PS4 on May 10). An ancient and mysterious order, it has long served the kingdom by relentlessly pursuing and purging all manifestations of magic: the reality-warping force that consumes those foolish enough to study it, transforming them into living embodiments of unquenchable chaos. Inquisitors are drawn from condemned—given the choice to serve the Inquisition as recompense for their crimes. For countless generations, the kingdom’s condemned have sacrificed themselves in the pursuit of Mages.

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But as with any storied institution, the Inquisition cracks with age, splinters emerging throughout. Schismatic sects have read different goals into the Inquisition’s ancient texts, finding just cause to shed Inquisitor blood in the name of some greater good. Why must a hunter limit her quarry?

My name is James Silva, and I’m one half of the development team for Salt and Sacrifice. I do all the art, animation, level design, as well as a lot of engineering, writing, audio design (I also write PS blog articles here and there). What I don’t do–at least, not well–is netcode, and that’s where the other half of the development team, Shane Lynch, comes in.

Over the last two years of perhaps needlessly intense work, Shane and I have built the world that is the western frontier of Ossenleigh Valley, where the rise of magic has turned burgeoning settlements into smoldering ash heaps of lawless ch

Hello, fellow PlayStation lovers! I’m Ryan Brown, the “Head of Words” at Super Rare Originals, which is a far more interesting way of saying that I’m the marketing lead at our exciting new indie publishing label.

Today I have the privilege of revealing our first ever title for PlayStation – Post Void, coming to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in spring 2022.

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We’re lucky to be working with the talented duo at Y/C/Y/J, who knocked it out of the park with their hit game Post Void, which we are now bringing to consoles. Post Void is hypnotic, challenging, and ridiculously fast. Take your favourite shooters of the past, put them in a blender, add in some paint and tons of caffeine, and voila, you’ve got Post Void.

The rules are simple: with a pistol in one hand and an idol containing your health in the other, you have just one objective: Be fast.

You must move constantly and keep your idol filled by racking up your kill count. If you slow down for even a minute, it’s game over – no lives, no retries. Every run is different, thanks to procedurally generated levels, so to reach the oasis at the end of each level and retrieve a well-earned random upgrade, you’re truly going to have to… well, get good.

There are no places to hide, or to stop and catch your breath, and one slip up can end your run. Runs are short, so death doesn’t sting for long – and you will die, again, and again, and again. Just jump straight back in and hone your skills.

Post Void is an addictive pick-up-and-play game, whether you have time for one quick run or end up pouring hours in as you get tantalisingly closer to the end.

It’s intentionally intense, violent, and chaotic, both in its gameplay and its visual style. Creators Josef and Christopher poured their bizarre sense of style and passion int

Long before the actual start of the project, the creative team at Tribute Games had already had this discussion. “If we did a new Turtles Beat’ em up game… what would be the ‘must haves’?” Unequivocally, the resounding reply was “We need to have Splinter as a playable character!”

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Tribute Games joins the PlayStation Underground crew for an in-depth look at Master Splinter’s combat prowess in action.

In our youth, we all imagined Splinter was a capable combatant. However, as much on television in the original animated series as in the early licensed video games, rarely did we see the master show off his skills – and this scarcity quite likely charged Splinter’s mysticism. Tribute Games and Dotemu are thrilled to offer the possibility to take the Turtles’ sensei from a more passive character to a fully-fledged playable fighter!

It is in the very nature of Tribute Games to capture the essence of the great things of the past and honor them with the most respect possible. Placing Splinter in TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge to make it a unique experience that lived up to our expectations was not something to be taken lightly.

Effective and Powerful

As the Turtles’ elder, Master Splinter exudes an aura of wisdom. He needed to be a little more calm and collected in his movements – but not slow.

The design team created an extensive moveset with a multitude of attacks, jumps, slides, and special attacks drawing a connection with fond memories of the great rat. 

It is dark. It is lonely. You don’t belong in this world. It’s not that it’s a hostile world… it’s just… not yours. As you uncover its secrets, the world grows on you. It takes on a feel of familiarity, yet you know that you’ve only probed the surface. The more you discover, the more you realize how much more there is to discover. Secrets leading to more secrets. You recall the feeling of zooming closer and closer in on a very high-resolution photo. As you hone your focus, the world betrays its secrets.

When describing Animal Well to new people, I find it best to start with the mood I’m trying to create. It has the sensibilities of the survival horror genre, but it’s not really a scary game. It has puzzles and platforms, but it’s not quite a puzzle platformer. The art style is simple looking pixel art but will be employing lighting and visual effects that will push the PlayStation 5 hardware. Summarizing Animal Well succinctly is a challenge. There are no hardcore platforming challenges, intense fights, or jump scares, but lots of situational lateral thinking brain teasers set in a creepy yet not-uninviting world. 

Mechanically, Animal Well is quite simple. To navigate the world, you move left and right, and you can jump. You can also use a handful of items you discover throughout the game, like a yoyo or a frisbee. Everything is built upon that foundation.

Throughout my life I’ve found it very satisfying when I get to become intimately familiar with a space, and perfectly map it out in my brain. I spent so much time in my parents’ house growing up, that I had every closet, drawer, and shelf etched into my memory. However, after living there for years, I remember one day finding a new drawer kind of tucked away under our extended kitchen countertop. It was empty, but I was very excited. I can’t imagine how I would have felt if I found something more substantial, like a full hidden room.

Animal Well tries to capture that feeling x100. In it, you explore a surreal interconnected labyrinth that is absolutely loaded with secrets. It has a map that is not nearly as big as some games, but it aims to be much denser. Returning to a familiar area is exciting because there is a chance you will discover something new amongst the familiar. You might visit it with a new ability, or new understanding that helps you uncover something. By locking the camera until you leave the frame, the game encourages you to examine each screen as a whole and think about where something could be hidden. There is always the possibility of a surprise right beneath your nose.

Your adventure with Quill continues in Moss: Book II, the highly anticipated sequel to Moss, where we will soon be rewarded with more of everything we fell in love with in the original: fresh challenges, new game mechanics, extensive environments, epic enemy encounters, and more opportunities to bond with our favorite tiny mouse friend. Everyone has their favorite parts of the game, but the magic of Moss is rooted in the believable moments and true sense of immersion that shape our every experience and connection to the world. 

As we gear up for the release of Moss: Book II later this spring, we wanted to give you a little insight into the careful thought and work that goes into creating our physical presence and fostering those special connections we make in the world of Moss. 

We heard early on that fans were blown away by the environments within Moss. They would often comment that not only were they beautifully crafted down to the minute details, but that the sense of scale was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-like, bringing an unfamiliar sense of scale that immediately heightened their curiosity. Familiar plants, animals, and objects felt whimsical when viewed from a low vantage point.

In Moss: Book II, we’re excited for you to feel the sense of scale once again with the addition of much larger rooms to explore. Not only are the rooms bigger, reminding you of Quill’s true size, but they allow us to create expansive multi-dimensional puzzles and platforming challenges you’ll have to work through with Quill within the context of a much larger single space. To navigate these larger-than-life rooms, we implemented seamless camera cuts using familiar transition fades with no load time. Now, you can reach new vantage points within the room, inspect previously unnoticeable details, discover secrets, and solve puzzles without worry of jarring motion or discomfort.

Moss is rich with environments to explore and puzzles to solve. Knowing you wanted even more, we doubled down in Moss: Book II. In fact, one of the things we heard from players is that they wanted the opportunity to revisit areas in the game for further exploration and for the ability to search for missed collectables—so we did just that.

You’ll quickly find that all of the rooms in Moss: Book II are connected, which not only improves spatial understanding of the world, but allows us to inject tension with surprise scenarios when revisiting a known place, triggering emotional ups and downs. Now, when you reenter a room, you may experience it from a new angle via a camera cut, find it peppered with visual differences resulting in story progression, or be able to solve past mysteries with recently discovered tools. Whatever your motivations are for re-exploration in the game, you will now see how the world evolves along with the adventure. 

Quill’s personality, expressive movements, and interactions with us make her the real st

UPDATE: That’s a wrap! We hope you enjoyed the new reveals we’ve shared over the past couple hours. Click the links below to catch up on all the news, then head to the comments and let us know which one was your favorite.

• Creating the connected world of Moss: Book II
• The secrets of Animal Well, coming to PS5
• Master Splinter is coming to TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge
• Post Void blasts to PS5 and PS4 this spring
• Exploring the upgraded PvP of Salt and Sacrifice, launching May 10
• Samurai Gunn 2 is coming to PS5
• Hello Neighbor 2 announced for PS4 and PS5

Hi everyone! We’ve lined up seven indie updates and new reveals that we’re excited to share with you this morning. Check in starting at 7am Pacific — every 15 minutes we’ll publish a new story here at PlayStation.Blog.

Once the festivities have ended, we’ll update this post with links to all seven updates. Please let us know what you think of each reveal in the comments!

We’re just minutes away from our first reveal. Spoiler alert: we’re kicking things off with a new look at one of our most anticipated upcoming PlayStation VR titles…

With the launch of Horizon Forbidden West only a few days away, we are keen to share some of the accessibility features that will be available for our players. Early on in the game’s development, we established that we wanted to bring the game to as many fans as possible and create an immersive and accessible experience that can be enjoyed by everyone. Some of these return from Horizon Zero Dawn, and some are newly added as we’ve continued to learn and understand more about the needs of our players.

We hope these features help craft the gameplay experience that works best for you, and look forward to hearing your feedback so we can finetune even further!

General Accessibility Settings

There are a couple of things that are automatically enabled upon starting the game, one of them being subtitles. You also have the option to change the size and background used with subtitles for better visibility. You can select your preferred language (both spoken and subtitles) when starting the game for the first time.

In the game menu you can find the Notebook, an expansive encyclopedia containing useful information about characters, machines, and datapoints found in the world. We wanted to ensure that any help can easily be found while you are playing, should you need guidance, so we added a separate Tutorials section to study up on game mechanics or controls.

Difficulty Settings

We understand that every player wants their own type of challenge in the Forbidden West, so we have five difficulty settings that are tailored to give you the experience you prefer; from Story Mode which eases the combat experience so you can focus on exploration and story, to Very Hard which presents you with a tough, demanding combat experience and really tests your skills.

We’re also introducing the Custom Difficulty setting, which allows you to adjust damage levels that Aloy deals and receives to/from enemies, giving more flexibility in adjusting combat difficulty.

Horizon Forbidden West has a focus on hunting machines, then detaching and looting their resources to craft ammo and upgrade equipment. Many of these resources can be destroyed if not detached before the machine is killed. This can be challenging, so we have introduced an Easy Loot system. Turning the Easy Loot option on means that any resource components that are still attached when killing a machine are added to its loot inventory. This lessens the need to detach those components during combat. This system is the default for Story and Easy difficulties as well as an option in Custom mode.

Controller Settings

As Aloy is a skilled and agile hunter, it is important that the controls be as intuitive and comfortable to use, allowing Aloy to use her full range to succeed. With this in mind we have introduced a number of options to

Hello, Evil Dead fans, it’s Tim Willits from Saber Interactive here to talk about the upcoming Evil Dead: The Game. Our talented Saber Interactive Madrid team has been working tirelessly to bring you a game that is as authentically Evil Dead as possible,  from the characters to the locations to the franchise’s signature humor and, yes, the over-the-top bloody gore that Evil Dead is known for. 

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When you play the game in May, you’ll join up with up to four friends (or play the solo mode option to team up with AI) and play as Survivors, exploring, looting, managing your fear and finding weapons and items to fend off an onslaught of Deadites who are hell bent on destroying you. You’ll be battling to force the vile Kandarian Demon back into a rift between time and space and then seal it shut. Or  you can play as the demon itself and unleash hell on the Survivors by possessing items in the environment like trees and cars, summoning Deadites and, if you grow powerful enough, taking over the bodies of the Survivors themselves. 

One of the best things about making this game has been working closely with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and the studios behind the Evil Dead franchise to faithfully recreate the Evil Dead universe. Of course that starts with everyone’s favorite characters. 

Hail to the King 

We’ve worked closely with Bruce Campbell himself to bring Ash Williams to life in our game. You’ll get to play multiple versions of Ash from the Evil Dead timeline, including from the original trilogy of movies and the older, wiser and still badass Ash from the television show. 

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