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Worldbuilding for asymmetrical spy co-op in Operation: Tango

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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

Indies take the spotlight with a day of new reveals and updates

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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.

This week on Destruction AllStars: Bluefang Challenge Series and Season 1 sneak peek

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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.

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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

Returnal: Four mysteries from the new story trailer answered

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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.

Returnal: Four mysteries from the new story trailer answered

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.  

Returnal

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

Mega March promotion comes to PlayStation Store

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The Mega March promotion ushers in a vast boutique of discounted games onto PlayStation Store! Starting Wednesday March 17 and running until Wednesday, March 31* there’s 60% off a bunch of titles. That includes the likes of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Need for Speed Heat: Deluxe Edition and Fallout 4. 

Below is a select list of games that are part of the promotion. For the full list plus your regional discounts, head here (for EU players) and here (for US players). 

  • Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection
  • Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Deluxe Edition
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops III – Zombies Chronicles
  • Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
  • Control
  • Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Deluxe Edition
  • Dying Light
  • Fallout 4
  • Far Cry New Dawn
  • FIFA 21 Champions Edition PS4 & PS5
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
  • Need for Speed  Heat Deluxe Edition
  • The Sims 4
  • Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Deluxe Edition
  • Watch Dogs 2

*Mega March promotion ends at 23.59pm local time on March 31. For regional discounts, please check related product pages on your local PlayStation Store. 

Rainbow Six Siege’s latest season Crimson Heist starts today

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Greetings Operators. The team at Ubisoft wanted to drop an update on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege’s latest season. Please read on.

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Hello Operators, and welcome to Year 6 Season 1 of Rainbow Six Siege: Crimson Heist. We want to give you an overview of what to expect from the game’s latest update, which is going live today on PS4 and PS5. As well as a look at our new operator and reimagined map, we’ve got details on an upcoming Free Weekend. 

Rainbow Six Siege’s latest season Crimson Heist starts today

Meet Flores, master thief and remote-controlled explosive expert 

Firstly, let’s introduce you to the game’s newest operator: Flores. This brand-new addition to team Rainbow from Argentina is a food-truck owner by day, and most importantly, a master thief by night.

Flores has access to a remote-controlled explosive device: he can deploy this at his feet, and drive it through the map during a limited period. At the end of the timer (or earlier if you choose), the device will arm itself, become bulletproof, and start a short fuze countdown, at the end of which it detonates in a powerful explosion. Flores also comes armed with an AR33 and a SR-25.

If you want to make the most out of team Rainbow’s latest recruit, you will need to be sly. His ability makes him a powerful support operator to use from the backline. He has excellent area denial and soft breach capacities. But in Rainbow Six Siege, you can never win alone, and it is especially true for Flores. He is vulnerable while he is guiding his drone, so make sure your friends are protecting you.

Oh, and do not forget to check if there is a Mozzie or a Mute in the enemy team. You would not want something bad to happen to your RCE, don’t you?

A reimagined Border map

You will also have access to a reimagined Border map, which has been newly reworked with an interior balcony connecting the east staircase to the break room. The bathroom has also been extended to be connected to the tellers. It is a new challenging environment with some entry blocked, a reduced number of destructible walls and an additional outside staircase.

Rainbow Six Siege Free Weekend 

If you are waiting to invite your friends to Rainbow Six Siege’s intense close-quarters multiplayer action, there is no better time. Assemble your squad and invite them to play for free on PS4 from March 18 to 24.

Introducing Haven, a new Montreal-based independent studio

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It’s been a strange and difficult past 12 months. The pandemic, social injustice, and job elimination have impacted many of my closest friends, family, and co-workers. All of these factors, paired with an inability to see friends and family face-to-face, lulled me into a kind of self-reflective cocoon where I had to ask myself some tough questions about what really matters.

I’ve been making games for a long time — over 25 years now! I’ve had the opportunity to lead the creation of two highly successful original IPs and build multiple teams and studios from the ground up. Some of these adventures have been more successful than I could have ever imagined, and others less so. 

Several people have asked me recently: “After all of these experiences, do you still want to be in the games industry?” The answer is always an unwavering YES! The games industry is where I belong!

Whether it’s playing Settlers of Catan with my kids or Valheim with my team, games continue to bring me joy. They’re a way to relax, connect, and share experiences with people I care about. And the act of making games is, in many ways, even more fulfilling. Getting to bring together experts across so many different creative fields – from music composers, to concept artists, to programmers (yes! programmers are creative too!) into a perfectly synched orchestra that delivers new worlds for players to explore. For me, there is nothing more fulfilling or rewarding I can imagine doing.

As I took stock of my career over the last few years and started to think about what to do next, I came to a very simple conclusion: I need to get back to what I love doing most, and do so in a way that gives our team the freedom to explore, inspire, and create. 

And so today I’m announcing Haven, an independent studio where many of the talented game developers I have worked with for years (and love dearly!) are coming together to do what we are most passionate about. It’s time for us to refocus on GAMES in a place where we can practice our crafts without any barriers or impediments. We want to create worlds where players can escape, have fun, express themselves, and find community. We want to pour our passion into a project. We want to make something wondrous for people to experience. Because we believe in the power of games to bring joy to people’s lives. And Sony does, too. Their commitment to excellence is unmatched. It’s why I couldn’t be happier for their backing and support.

Together, we want to create games that are a haven for players, and we want to build a studio that is a haven for developers. So, while we don’t have many details to announce today, I want the PlayStation community to know that Haven Studios is already hard at work on an unannounced IP. We can’t wait to show you more!

Mundaun invites you to a world of hand-drawn horror on PS4 tomorrow

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Hello, everyone. I am Michel Ziegler, the creator and developer behind Mundaun, a folklore-inspired horror game and my first full-length title as a one-man game development studio!

Mundaun has been a passion project for me since I began development in 2014. Every character, scene and even environmental textures in the game are hand-pencilled – you can imagine how much drawing I’ve had to do over the years.

It’s amazing to finally share the game with you all after working on it for so many years. Creating a game as a solo developer has certainly been an exciting journey, one with plenty of ups and downs.

Collecting references for inspiration

The Alps hold a special importance to me, and everything from Mundaun’s story to its characters and environments celebrate the remarkable culture of the Swiss region of Grisons. Mundaun is heavily inspired by the Alps’ rich history of myth and culture, and pays homage to the oppressive atmosphere of works like Jeremias Gotthelf’s “The Black Spider”.

In order to do so, I tried to gather as many books and references for many of the elements I’ve included in the game. I have been scavenging thrift stores over the years, and must have collected at least 50 books with old photographs from rural life in the Alps, which are my biggest visual inspirations for the look of the game. The atmosphere these black and white pictures have, to me, is a window into almost a different world, and I wanted to immerse myself in the world in a way.

Scouting real-life locations

The chapel in Mundaun was the very first thing I modeled for the game. I didn’t really have a plan for a game, but I started to create this small piece of a world that featured a chapel, and the ideas continued to flow from there.

It’s still one of my favorite places in the game, and one where you can see that the game is entirely drawn by hand. Everything from the ceiling to the windows and the benches were inspired by this chapel in Platenga, which is full of these incredible drawings and paintings. It’s like a drawing inside of the game.

Another location in the game is the Painter’s House, which is a real house that was built and used by an artist named Alois Carigiet in the 1950s. He was a very well-known Swiss painter and illustrator of children’s books. He put a variety of drawings on the house walls, one of which inspired a puzzle i

Severed Steel – a new FPS big on bullet time and stylish gunplay

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Hi, I’m Matt and I’m thrilled to announce my FPS project Severed Steel. Severed Steel is a single-player shooter featuring a fully destructible voxel environment, loads of bullet time, and a unique one-armed protagonist.

Severed Steel – a new FPS big on bullet time and stylish gunplay

Maybe the most unique aspect of Severed Steel is its protagonist, Steel. Steel loses her arm in an accident just before the start of the game. EdenSys, the gigantic corporation responsible for her injury, decides to abandon her rather than help. The campaign is about Steel liberating others crushed under the boot of EdenSys while seeking revenge for her abandonment. 

The missing arm concept came to me while thinking a lot about gameplay mechanics. I wanted to subvert the concept of reloading in shooting games, and I liked the concept of players constantly throwing, ditching, and picking up new weapons. I considered the idea of a one-armed character. Someone that would find creative ways to keep well-stocked with ammo in the midst of battle: rather than worry about reloading, they’d use their agility to steal weapons from enemies’ hands. Having a one-armed character who can’t reload opened a lot of unique gameplay. But the decision to have a protagonist with one arm meant I was dealing with a subject outside my own experience. And if the game were to star such a protagonist, it must be playable by people who can relate to Steel’s experience.

Before committing to the character design I researched what it is like to be a gamer with one arm. Through that I discovered a lot. For instance: Did you know there is a vibrant community on YouTube of highly skilled console FPS gamers who play with one arm? Taking my learnings from that, I made sure to include a custom button binding option to be dictated by the player. Once I was confident I could realize the character of Steel in an inclusive way, I committed to the design. 


Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

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This week, the team fielded your listener letters with quality recommendations on games that can be completed in a night or two. Plus, we get the soundtrack from Astro’s Playroom stuck in our heads again.video gamespodcastplaystation

Stuff We Talked About

  • Little Nightmares II
  • Sackboy: A Big Adventure
  • Astro’s Playroom
  • Limbo
  • Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture
  • Firewatch
  • We Were Here
  • Outriders

The Cast

Tim Turi –  Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE

Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE

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