LITTLEBIGPLANET 3

Publisher SCE Developer Sumo Digital Format PS3, PS4 Release November

With Media Molecule working on its secretive Move project, development of Little Big Planet 3 has fallen to Sumo Digital. Sumo already has form with the series, having worked on 2012’s Cross-Controller Pack (which lets you play LBP2 on Vita), but this will be the first time that a company other than Media Molecule has handled a major entry in the series.

Sumo is making its mark with the introduction of several new playable characters, each with their own abilities. Swoop, a bird, can fly to otherwise out-of-reach areas and carry other characters with him; Toggle can change between Big Toggle and Little Toggle at will, allowing him to, say, sink to the bottom of water when large or walk across its surface when small; Oddsock, meanwhile, looks like an elongated toad and can wall jump. None of Sackboy’s new friends exude the charm of the original character, but the wealth of co-op gameplay possibilities they present are obvious.

Sackboy hasn’t been left behind by his new companions, either. He can now climb parts of the environment (cargo nets, for example), and will also have access to four new power-ups, although Sumo has so far only revealed the Pumpinator, an air gun that can be used to manipulate environmental elements, pushing objects and turning wheels, for example.

Introducing characters with unique abilities suggests a shift away from platforming towards a more puzzlebased design. That’s just as well given the number of botched jumps during Sony’s E3 stage demo