I miss the golden age of oddball, first-party PlayStation exclusives
Between closing PixelOpus and its refocus on live-service titles, PlayStation is losing the eccentric spirit that helped establish the brand.
Concrete Genie Confirmed for October Launch Including PlayStation VR Support
Having confirmed virtual reality (VR) support for artistic adventure Concrete Genie in March, developer Pixelopus and publisher San Mateo Studio went on to reveal the PlayStation VR compatibility would be on two specific modes. Today, the teams have revealed that Concrete Genie will be arriving in October.
A PlayStation 4 exclusive, Concrete Genie puts you in the shoes of protagonist Ash on his personal journey to paint his seaside hometown of Denska back to life. Bullies steal his notebook which he doodles in, ripping out the pages and scattering them throughout the streets. Whilst looking for them Ash finds a special paintbrush which can bring his creations to life. Using Ash’s magic brush you need to explore the grim and desolate-looking town, adding colour and life to the darkest corners.
The two VR compatible modes are ‘VR Experience’ and ‘Free Paint’. Supporting only PlayStation Move, the first mode is a story campaign heading beneath Denska’s ominous lighthouse. This needs to be completed before ‘Free Paint’ can be unlocked, allowing you to get creative in four unique Denska locations.
On PlayStation Blog, Pixelopus Creative Director Dominic Robilliard that a Photo Mode will be available at launch offering a timelapse style ‘Replay’ ability which allows creators to show how they built their artistic compositions. There will also be a couple of version with pre-order incentives attached. The standard edition will retail for $29.99 USD/€29.99 EUR with the Digital Deluxe coming in at $39.99/€39.99, with lots of goodies: “You get a Digital Artbook featuring a ton of stunning development images created by Art Director Jeff Sangalli and our amazing art team, a complete soundtrack from the game composed by Sam Marshall, a Pond Design Pack to expand your design toolset, and an additional Dynamic Theme featuring the Lighthouse location from the game.”
If you pre-order either you’ll get an Avatar set as well as a special Dynamic Theme featuring a rooftop scene from Denska.
Concrete Genie will launch in North America on 8th August while the European version will arrive a day later on Friday 9th. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Concrete Genie, reporting back with any further updates.
PS4 Exclusive Concrete Genie Launches With PSVR Modes In October
One of Sony’s more intriguing PS4 exclusives releases soon, and it’s bringing PSVR support with it.
Concrete Genie from PixelOpus is releasing on October 9th. The main bulk of the game is played on a flat screen, but it also comes with two free PSVR modes. Check out the trailer for the game below.
Concrete Genie is a game about artistry and bullying. You play as a teenager named Ash that suffers from bullying. Ash vents his frustrations with art, which one day leads him to a lighthouse in which he discovers a magical paintbrush. In the main game, you’ll use this to paint on walls and bring your creations to life. These paintings, called Genies, will assist you in getting around town, avoiding bullies and cleaning up your polluted surroundings.
PSVR owners will get an additional campaign to play through too. You wield PlayStation Move controllers, helping a Genie named Splotch on a new quest. Once you’ve finished that mode you’ll also unlock a free paint mode to use around the game world. Think of it like Tilt Brush with an adventure mode.
We went hands-on with the game’s PSVR support earlier in the year. We found the creative freedom to be pretty liberating, but it remains to be seen exactly how much VR content will be on offer.
Concrete Genie can be pre-ordered now from the PlayStation Store. A standard version of the game costs $29.99 while the Digital Deluxe Edition packs a soundtrack, art book, design pack and a PS4 theme. Looking forward to playing the game? Let us know in the comments below!
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‘Concrete Genie’ to Launch with 2 PSVR Modes This Year
Pixelopus announced their next game, Concrete Genie, way back at Paris Games Week in 2017. Now, the studio says two separate PSVR modes are coming to the PlayStation exclusive game at launch, which is set for later this fall.
Concrete Genie promises to be a vivid, atmospheric game centered around a bullied teenager named Ash, who escapes his troubles by painting living landscapes and a cast of mischievous creatures throughout his abandoned hometown of Denska. By painting the walls, Ash discovers he can purify Denska, and bring it back to life. This is the full game however, which is exclusive to PS4 and PS4 Pro.
According to a PS blogpost by Sony San Mateo Studio creative director Jeff Brown, the first PSVR mode, aptly named ‘VR Experience’, tasks you with “following a curious Genie named Splotch beneath Denska’s ominous lighthouse on a quest to unlock a mysterious power while using your Living Paint in a completely new way.”
Pixelopus is staying tight-lipped on further detail, although more information is said to arrive in the coming months leading up to launch.
“While looking at other possible PS VR modes for the game, everybody had a simple, common desire – to stand in one of Denska’s alleyways, paintbrush in hand, using Living Paint to bring our surroundings to life. A completely immersive, first-person painting experience,” Brown says, referring to the game’s second VR mode.
Dubbed Concrete Genie PS VR Free Paint mode, you’re given the choice between four Denska locations “where you can play and experiment with all the Living Paint and Genie creation brushes you collect during your Concrete Genie adventures,” Brown elaborates.
The studio says that players must first complete ‘VR Experience’ to unlock ‘VR Free Paint’. Both modes require two PS Move motion controllers.
While it’s somewhat disheartening to hear that such a visually intense game won’t be fully playable in PSVR, this represents the studio’s first dive in VR; we certainly hope it isn’t their last.
Check out the campaign (non-PSVR) trailer below:
The post ‘Concrete Genie’ to Launch with 2 PSVR Modes This Year appeared first on Road to VR.
Two PlayStation VR Modes Unveiled for Concrete Genie
Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) State of Play broadcast the other week displayed quite a few titles for PlayStation VR, one of which was Concrete Genie. At the time few details were revealed regarding how the virtual reality (VR) portion would work. Today, that’s now changed with Creative Director of San Mateo Studio, Jeff Brown detailing the two VR modes.
Developed by Pixelopus, Concrete Genie is about a boy named Ash who brings his ruined seaside town of Denska back to life through his painting.
On PlayStation.Blog Brown says that the first PlayStation VR mode is ‘VR Experience’ where: “you’ll follow a curious Genie named Splotch beneath Denska’s ominous lighthouse on a quest to unlock a mysterious power while using your Living Paint in a completely new way.” Players will need to complete ‘VR Experience’ to unlock the next immersive mode ‘Free Paint’, where players have four unique Denska locations to choose from. Once there they’ll be able to use Concrete Genie’s Living Paint and the Genie creation brushes collected in the main campaign to create as they wish.
Both PlayStation VR modes only support two PlayStation Move Motion Controllers – no DualShock 4 here – for maximum painting creativity.
Concrete Genie is due out this Fall for PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR support. It’s another title that’ll allow PlayStation owners to get creative in new ways, with the other being Media Molecule’s Dreams. The big difference, however, is the fact that Dreams will allow you to create entire worlds of your own design, offering even grander scope for those with the imagination to do so. A Dreams early access release is planned for this month to showcase the creation suite but it won’t include VR support, unfortunately. VR will come in the final version it seems, which still doesn’t have a release window even after six years of development.
So for the time being Concrete Genie’s release later this year is the one to look forward to. That is unless you count all the other VR titles coming to PlayStation VR in 2019. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the latest VR videogames, reporting back with the latest updates.