The Indie Journey

How does an indie game go from concept to release, and what does that tell us about what Sony is really like? We speak to the developers behind OlliOlli, Velocity, and The Unfinished Swan to find out...

When talking about the fateful meeting that led to OlliOlli coming to Playstation, Roll7’s Simon Bennett recalls, “We sat down and said, ‘Here’s the stuff we’ve been doing and here’s our pedigree as a business outfit,' and they just really weren’t interested. We showed them a game we’d made for kids with ADHD - no interest there. We showed another thing we’d done previously - again, no interest. Tom [Hegarty, one of Roll7’s founders], seeing that there was no interest said to Shahid [Ahmad, former director of strategic content at SCEE], well, why don’t we show you our skateboarding game?”

Quantum Break: Delayed Gratification

Looking back, it’s actually a little surprising that Microsoft put so much faith in Remedy. When Quantum Break was first revealed alongside the Xbox One on that disastrous day back in April 2013 – the day the generation war was waged and wasted – Microsoft needed the ever-faithful second party studio to make good on its commitment to blending live-action television with high-octane gameplay, and it needed it quickly. But two release windows passed without note, Microsoft swiftly ditched its silver screen ambitions, and we’ve been left wondering whether Quantum Break would be crushed by the weight of its own ambition, frozen in time as a warning to those attempting to dictate to gamers what they supposedly want. But we’ve seen it in action and that thought couldn’t be further from the truth. Well, you know what they say, hindsight’s a bit of a bitch. With the 5 April launch date fast approaching, Quantum Break is hoping to prove itself as a bold storytelling experiment that’s quite unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

EVE: Valkyrie - The First VR Blockbuster

Does VR finally have its first must-play triple-A game?

2016 is the year virtual reality ceases to be a part of a hazy futurist’s dream and finally becomes, well, a reality. Oculus, HTC and Sony are all readying for the release of the first home-use displays, commercially available (and more importantly, affordable) hardware that threatens to be one of the most transformative and important pieces of technology humanity has seen in decades. But there isn’t an architectural, medical, or even educational drive behind the emerging technology; it’s videogames taking charge of this incredible innovation.

Tekken 7

A one-stop shop for fighting bears, cyborgs and melodrama

So this is how it ends; with women who can throw literal tiger uppercuts. You didn’t think that the Tekken series would attempt to wrap up the Mishima clan saga with an earnest and heartfelt confrontation between Heihachi, Kazuya and Jin alone did you? No, Katsuhiro Harada was never going to let the premier 3D fighter in the world go out like that. Only the very best in logic-defying, fist-exploding and animal-anthropomorphising gameplay could possibly do for the triumphant and epic conclusion to this story, and you can even experience it with VR.

Primal Evolution

Far Cry goes back to the past to present us the future of the franchise

Let’s be honest. While there are examples of successful series that have taken wildly unexpected turns in recent years – Metal Gear Solid and Super Mario being the two obvious standouts from 2015 – they are precious few in number. Games that are part of a wider, successful franchise tend not to rock the boat too much when it comes to their design choices and settings. Fewer still have swum against the current and succeeded in providing their audiences with something worthy of their respective franchise’s lofty status.