THREE OF A KIND

We mine the release list for next-gen gold. This month: Sony’s indie showcase

recompile

ETA 2020 / PUB DEAR VILLAGERS / DEV PHIGAMES 01

You’re a virus inside the bit-world of The Mainframe on a mission to achieve sapience and bring about the first technological singularity. Recompile is a metroidvania with touches of Control as you decide how to accomplish your goal: platforming, third-person combat, and environmental hacking puzzles merge to form an elegant approach to narrative adventuring. Oh, and it reminds us of Tron.

Whether you choose to go in phasers blazing or embrace your hacking skills to turn enemies on one another, the choices you make matter. As it’s set within a code-world, the entire environment is hackable too. How your AI character develops comes down to your play style, and will ultimately define the game’s ending.

WORMS RUMBLE ETA 2020 / PUB TEAM 17 DEV TEAM 17 02

The classic Worms formula has been recast into a frenetic realtime 32-player tactics shooter. Fast-paced, you can roll around the colourful arenas, wall-hugging until your stamina runs out, leaving you vulnerable to attack. There’s a balance to your worms’ newly acquired movement that needs to be managed.

Game modes at launch include Deathmatch, Last Worm Standing, and Last Squad Standing, which play as expected. Arenas have restricted zones that drain your wormy health the longer you dally, adding an extra layer of strategy to the mayhem.

HEAVENLY BODIES ETA 2021 / PUB 2PT INTERACTIVE DEV 2PT INTERACTIVE 03

This co-op physicsbased puzzler has a simple premise: work together to maintain a zero-gravity space station. The twist is you control your astronauts’s limbs independently; legs and arms on the shoulder buttons.

As it makes use of DualSense’s adaptive triggers, the developer reveals we’ll be able to feel objects slip out of our grip and sense the density of items we’re holding. The controller’s haptic feedback is used to perceive the creaking and bending of the space station as gravity puts stress on its repairable joints.