P L A Y S T A T i o n 2 0 t h A NNI V E R S A R Y E D I T ION
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Twenty years of playstation
how PS1 invented the MODERN VIDEOGAME
star citizen CAN CHRIS ROBERTS’ COLOSSAL RETURN TO GAMES WIN THE SPACE RACE?
reviewED
CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE LITTLEBIGPLANEt 3 SUNSET OVERDRIVE LORDS OF THE FALLEN Civilization: Beyond Earth
PLAYSTATION TV ON TEST
#274
C h r i s tm a s 2014
THE MAKING OF NO MORE HEROES
Views from the launchpad “We do recognise Sony as a major player. It’s just that we’re confident that we know videogames better than anyone, and we feel supremely confident that at every technical turn the Ultra 64 is a superior machine to the PlayStation, and will offer a greater gaming experience.” When Peter Main, who for 15 years served as Nintendo Of America’s executive VP of sales and marketing, said this in late 1994, Sony’s PlayStation had only just been released into the world, and even then only to the Japanese market. While attempting to brush Sony’s offering aside, in reality the statement revealed how seriously the game industry’s established players were taking this new competition. An aspiring rival that supposedly falls so far short of the mark isn’t even worth the recognition of discussion in public. Only legitimate threats deserve that kind of attention. Outside of Nintendo, others were more generous with their appraisals of Sony’s work, while also offering their own warnings. “The PlayStation is very strong, but Sony has absolutely no experience in this market, and the games market really is like no other,” Atari’s Darryl Still declared. “You can’t just come in and buy market share. You have to build it.” And build it Sony famously did. In this issue, 20 years on, we look at what the company’s fresh perspective brought to the game industry, via firstperson accounts from people who were there at the time. It’s our biggest feature of the year, reflecting the size of the impact PlayStation had on players, on game development, and on Sony’s competitors. Competition is one of the crucial factors keeping the videogame industry moving forward, which brings us to our cover story. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have seen Elite: Dangerous on the cover of E264 and No Man’s Sky heading up E270, so it should feel appropriate that we complete the trilogy with Star Citizen this issue. In our lead feature, we talk to developer Cloud Imperium about its own spin on deep-space adventure. 3
games 42
Hype
Play
38 Battlefield Hardline 360, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One
104 Sunset Overdrive
42 Battleborn PC, PS4, Xbox One
108 LittleBigPlanet 3
46 Tearaway Unfolded PS4
112 Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare
48 Puyo Puyo Tetris
PS4, Xbox One
50 There Came An Echo PC, Xbox One 52 Hype Roundup
Xbox One
PS4
360, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One
114 The Evil Within
360, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One
116 Lords Of The Fallen
PC, PS4, Xbox One
118 Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth PC
120 The Legend Of Korra
360, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One
122 Fantasia: Music Evolved
Explore the iPad edition of Edge for additional content
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360, Xbox One
Follow these links throughout the magazine for more content online
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sections #274
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94
ch r i s t ma s 2014
Knowledge 8 PlayStation TV on test
Sony’s diminutive PlayStation box gets off to a problematic start
24 This Month On Edge
88 Collected Works
Dispatches
94 The Making Of…
The things that caught our eye during the production of E274
A new, occasional series in which creators talk us through their careers. To begin: Insomniac’s Ted Price
12 Heavenly creatures
26 Dialogue
Edge readers share their opinions; one wins SteelSeries hardware
Suda51 explains how his team fused slacker attitude with swordplay in No More Heroes
14 Farming for gold
28 Trigger Happy
98 Studio Profile
16 Fear factor
30 Difficulty Switch
Hellblade heralds a new era of development for Ninja Theory Giants Software on bringing Farming Simulator to consoles
Steven Poole considers the power of abstraction and sandy expanses
We investigate the revival of Japanese horror games
Ian Bogost is concerned about the future of sharing on the sofa
18 Bird watch
Luna, Funomena’s beautiful puzzle game, prepares to take flight
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20 Soundbytes
Shuhei Yoshida talks DriveClub; Pete Hines addresses Prey 2
22 My Favourite Game
Susan Calman on evangelising games and renting Resident Evil
32 Big Picture Mode
Nathan Brown discovers a rare breed of online player in Destiny
From the small-scale Child Of Light to the sprawling Far Cry 4: inside Ubisoft Montreal
124 Time Extend
A microwave ray has fried San Francisco! Time for a return visit to PlatinumGames’ Vanquish
129 Postcards From The Clipping Plane
James Leach on the pitfalls of trying too hard not to offend
Features
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58 Space Craft
We edge Star Citizen out of the hangar and speak to the team behind the ambitious space sim
68 PlayStation: The Story Behind The Brand
Two decades on from launch, we look at how Sony created its world-beating game console
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EDITORIAL Tony Mott editor in chief Nathan Brown deputy editor Ben Maxwell writer Matthew Clapham production editor Mark Wynne senior art editor Andrew Hind art editor Contributors
Ian Bogost, Richard Cobbett, Martin Davies, Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, Phil Iwaniuk, James Leach, Alice Liang, Matthew Pellett, Simon Parkin, Steven Poole, Daniel Robson, Chris Schilling, Chris Thursten, Alvin Weetman
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Management
Daniel Dawkins group editor in chief Graham Dalzell group art director Declan Gough head of content and marketing, film, music and games Nial Ferguson content and marketing director Printed in the UK by William Gibbons & Sons on behalf of Future. Distributed in the UK by Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London, EC1A 9PT (+44 (0)20 74294000). Overseas distribution by Seymour International All submissions to Edge are made on the basis of a licence to publish the submission in Edge magazine and its licensed editions worldwide. Any material submitted is sent at the owner’s risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future Publishing Limited nor its agents shall be liable for loss or damage. All contents © Future Publishing Ltd 2014. While we make every effort possible to ensure that everything we print is factually correct, we cannot be held responsible if factual errors occur. Please check any quoted prices and specs with your supplier before purchase. Hey, thank you to everyone who voted for us! We love you all. All contents copyright © 2014 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, stored, transmitted or used in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price and other details of products or services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any changes or updates to them. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant Future a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions worldwide and in any physical or digital format throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.
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Chief executive Zillah Byng-Maddick Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial officer Richard Haley Tel +44 (0)207 042 4000 (London) Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244 (Bath)
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Specialist Magazine Of The Year
knowledge Playstation TV
A TV model in need of tuning The launch of PlayStation TV and ongoing DriveClub issues reveal some old problems lingering at Sony
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Announced as a PS4 launch title, DriveClub hit shelves last month with networking issues that rendered its social features unusable
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Currently, the big selling point is or its Japanese release last year, it Remote Play, allowing streaming of PS4 was branded as PS Vita TV, and no games over a local network or the wonder. What arrives in the west bearing Internet. It’s never been perfect, but its the more massmarket name PlayStation TV flaws have been easier to forgive given is clearly a Vita in slender clothing, with the thrill of playing a PS3 game on the the same OS, menus and Home screen move, using a device with an OLED music. Yet where Vita itself is large by screen that does a fine job of tidying up handheld standards – more showy variable video data. On PSTV, things are hardware design from a company famous different: you’re playing on a big screen, for it – PSTV is almost amusingly small. albeit one in the bedroom, and games Measuring a mere 6x10cm, it’s just tall are cut back from their full splendour, enough for the rear to accommodate an capped at 720p and 30 Ethernet cable, an HDMI frames per second. In our cable, USB drive and Vita On a big screen, tests, even with both memory card, plus the PS4 and PSTV wired into power supply. On the side games are cut home network as per sits a slot for card-based back from their full aSony’s recommendation, Vita games. It was the headline feature for a splendour, capped enough input latency was introduced to render device that launched in at 720p and 30 Destiny and Sleeping Japan four months before PS4, but PSTV’s role in the frames per second Dogs: Definitive Edition uncomfortable, if not west is very different. The unplayable, with artefacting sullying £85 device forms a third pillar of Sony’s busier moments. Our hopes that things gaming strategy that, on paper at least, is would improve when running a less ripe with potential: a low-cost My First graphically intensive game were dashed PlayStation that launches with a vast when Rogue Legacy performed similarly. library of games from across Sony’s two Luckily, a Cross Play-enabled Vita decades in the videogame business. version of that game exists, and when thought of as a Vita with HDMI out and support for DualShocks 3 and 4, PSTV makes more sense. The system upscales from Vita’s 960x544 resolution to a maximum of 1080i, and while the scaler isn’t best in class, it doesn’t diminish the satisfaction of playing on an HDTV and a sofa games designed for a five-inch screen. The thought of continuing the commute’s Persona 4 Golden run on the big screen of an evening is an enticing one, as is playing a game ill-suited to
Vita’s small screen and analogue sticks – a shooter, say – on a bigger display and with a DualShock in your hands.
If only we could. Persona 4 Golden was one of the few games that actually ran during our test, with PSTV’s lack of touchscreen support sounding the death knell for a chunk of the Vita catalogue. While we didn’t expect to be able to play Tearaway and other games built around Vita’s swollen featureset, nor did we expect error messages when trying to load firstparty big-hitters such as Gravity Rush or Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Even games that use the touchscreen in superfluous, optional ways fall foul of this limitation. If you want to play Lumines: Electronic Symphony or Everybody’s Golf: World Tour, you’re out of luck. Street Fighter X Tekken, which lets you map special-move inputs and button combos to quadrants of the front touchscreen and rear panel, but is perfectly playable with traditional sticks and buttons, is another that simply refuses to load. While some newer games have been made functional by patches, older games have been ignored. Of the 11 games available at Vita’s UK launch in February 2012, only one, Evolution Studios’ MotorStorm RC, works. Six of the current top ten sellers on Amazon are supported, which still doesn’t feel like enough. Fortunately, Sony has secured support for what might be the only game that matters. PSTV’s potential as a Minecraft box could be critical. It is the most popular game going with the demographic at which PSTV is aimed, and at under £100 for the system and a download copy of the game, it offers the cheapest route
PlayStation TV arrived in the UK on November 14. It’s £85 and bundled with download codes for OlliOlli, Velocity Ultra and Worms Revolution Extreme. For all its faults, the device may get a boost when the PlayStation Now streaming service launches
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Knowledge Playstation TV
1 Fast Friends While Sony’s lax attitude to PS4 firmware updates compared to its rival can be given a positive spin by pointing out that there was much more that needed fixing in Xbox One’s launch dashboard, by the time PS4 system software 2.0 arrived, the system’s OS was beginning to struggle. Friends lists and new messages could take a couple of minutes to load in, and it was pleasing to see that the October firmware update sped things up a little in addition to bringing new features such as YouTube uploads and Share Play’s virtual local multiplayer. Much work remains to be done, however, particularly on how games are arranged on the main menu. That horizontally scrolling list has become rather bulky to navigate as PS4’s library has grown, and Sony’s latest solution – having 15 recently used items on the Home screen, with everything else in the Library submenu – doesn’t quite cut it.
to full-fat Minecraft on the market. With that in mind, it’s staggering that the two haven’t been bundled together for launch; the £85 bundle comes with download codes for OlliOlli, Velocity Ultra and, for reasons that presumably made sense to somebody along the line, Worms Revolution Extreme. A Minecraft bundle has to follow at some point – at least assuming that Microsoft, Mojang’s new owner, has been honest in its promise not to block the game from appearing on other platforms – but having one on shelves for Christmas could have made all the difference. Yet regardless of compatibility issues, PSTV’s support for PS1, PSP and PS Mini releases means it launches with a library of some 700 games, giving it a clear competitive advantage over other set-top boxes. That, it turns out, is just as well given how far PSTV lags behind the likes of Apple TV, Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV as a media box. While a Netflix app was on the PlayStation Store when Vita launched in North America almost three years ago, it has never made it to Europe. As such, PSTV launches in the UK with no support for the world’s most popular subscription video service. Amazon Instant Video, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and Now TV – all, like Netflix, available in app form on PS3 and PS4 – are absent from the PSTV store. Bafflingly, you’re even forbidden from accessing the PS4 versions of the apps over Remote Play, the system throwing up an error message and then booting you unceremoniously back to the PS4 Home menu. It’s all a bit confusing. Set-top boxes should be simple to set up and easy to use. While PSTV’s setup is straightforward enough, the problems begin the minute you sit back and start using the thing. It is an irresistible idea in theory, and a fine bit of industrial design too, but it is blemished by substandard software support. It is, in that sense, a perfect metaphor for the current state of Sony.
After Microsoft spent most of 2013 leaving its goal untended and gently ushering Sony towards it, the latter half of 2014 has been very different.
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6 PlayStation TV’s slender, 6x10cm form factor is just big enough for all the necessary ports on its rear. The power button 1 can be ignored once you’ve synced a DualShock 3 or 4 to the device, since it can be woken from standby by pressing the controller’s PlayStation button. Next to it are ports for a Vita memory card 2 , USB drive 3 , HDMI cable 4 , Ethernet cable 5 and power supply 6 . A flap on the side of the device conceals a slot for PlayStation Vita game cards, and the device also has 1GB of onboard storage to hold your game and media downloads.
unforgivable now that Sony is charging DriveClub, the game Sony used to dull for its service. Once a month, Sony takes the pain of charging for online multiplayer down its £40-per-year online service for on PS4 by offering a cut-down version up to eight hours, taking with it alwaysof the title to PS Plus subscribers, has online games like Destiny, the multiplayer endured a disastrous launch. The only component of many more titles and, in thing saving it from reaching Sim City our experience, blocking access to digital and Diablo III levels of shame is the fact purchases because PSN refuses the that it can still be played in singleplayer console’s handshake to check for the when the servers are down. However, at proper licences. The network has a the time of writing, the game has been on recurring DDOS problem – shelves for almost a month and it remains an almost There’s little wrong one recent attack was conducted specifically to entirely offline pursuit. The that isn’t fixable, show that Sony has not long-promised PS Plus invested in improved Edition, meanwhile, has but who, given network protection – and been delayed indefinitely. Sony’s current since Destiny’s launch in It is a sorry tale for Evolution Studios, whose form, would expect early September, PS4 users have had to endure five supposed PS4 launch protracted periods of game was 11 months late it to be fixed? downtime, only one onto shelves and then of which was planned for. arrived stripped of key features by It affects PSTV, too. A bug in PS4 network troubles. But Sony’s response – system software 2.0 – the console’s first or lack of it – is the more damning part. It substantial firmware update since launch took three weeks for Worldwide Studios – meant its standby mode, for some president Shuhei Yoshida to acknowledge reason renamed Rest mode in the update, the problem, while senior Evolution staff, didn’t work properly, shutting the console who were open on social media during down fully after a time, and even locking development, fell suddenly silent. up the unit. Remote Play only works if the Sony’s network problems extend far PS4 is in Rest mode, so our tests meant a beyond DriveClub, however. While few disconsolate trips back downstairs to extended periods of PSN downtime turn on the machine by hand. Version for ‘scheduled maintenance’ were an 2.01 followed a week later to fix the inconvenience in the PS3 era, they are
As a Minecraft box, PSTV may still entice a younger audience and those seeking a low-cost point of entry
problem, but a week is a long time to solve a system-locking bug. And none of this inspires confidence in PlayStation Now, the on-demand streaming service that in its current beta state uses exorbitant rental pricing rather than subscriptions, and which will not function at all when Sony’s server infrastructure falls over.
Patch ’em all
Some Vita games run better than others on PSTV
With all this in mind, it’s little surprise that a bite-sized device full of potential should launch beset with so many seemingly avoidable issues. There’s little wrong with PSTV that isn’t fixable, but who, given Sony’s current form, would expect it to be fixed? Sony has long been excellent at hardware and poor at software solutions, and while its masterful PS4 marketing convinced millions of players that the company had changed, apparently behind the scenes still lurks a litany of ancient problems. Microsoft, meanwhile, updates the Xbox One interface once a month, has cleared out much of the executive deadwood that almost ruined the console before it had even launched, and has started making all the right noises to its audience. Sony’s latest fiscal update boasted of “a significant increase in network services revenue related to the introduction of the PS4”. It is time to start spending it on shoring up the services that raised that revenue, and quickly. n
Given how Tearaway (above) uses Vita’s touch, tilt, cameras and microphone, we didn’t ever expect it to run on PSTV, but Street Fighter X Tekken failing to work was an unpleasant surprise. The same holds for a number of other games with limited touchscreen dependance. Patches may be forthcoming, but it’s something of a lottery as to which titles are supported
Not all Vita games are upscaled from the handheld’s native 960x544 to match the resolution of your HDTV’s display. Some, including Killzone: Mercenary and the Vita port of Borderlands 2, have been updated to run in native 1080i. It’s a welcome move, but a limited one, and further reinforces the perception that the device has been released before it was ready. Sony says it is working with partners to get more Vita games up and running, and on securing media apps such as Netflix too, but PlayStation TV is hard to recommend until those discussions bear fruit, especially to those who already own both a Vita and PS4.
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Knowledge Hellblade
Heavenly creatures Why Ninja Theory is treating Hellblade’s development as a new era for the studio
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Development began in March, and he past 18 months have involved a lot self-funding meant going from a team of soul searching for Ninja Theory. In size of over 80 to just 13 people, though Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey two other concurrent projects mitigated To The West, the studio has worked with the need to downsize the studio. worlds that it’s desperate to revisit. But “We have traditionally created a lot with no offers from its publishers to do so, of bespoke content and a lot of set-pieces and with work on DmC: Devil May Cry in our games,” says Dominic Matthews, drawing to a close as well, last year the product development manager. “The studio decided to create new IP instead. challenge for us with a smaller team is Multiple pitches were constructed working in a smarter way. Our approach and rejected. A horror game created in to this game is to get as much value out tandem with 28 Days Later screenwriter of the people that we’ve got.” Alex Garland was dismissed because the For instance, the game’s sole horror genre “wasn’t popular enough”. environment artist has been given the A contemporary co-op and story-based freedom to create the world before any title, again in partnership with Garland, other mechanics have been finalised; in was also turned down, though not before the past, environments were always it was suggested the grounded characters created to serve a fixed were swapped out for script. And if sensible soldiers on Mars in order “Hellblade is not opportunities to recycle to make it more palatable. work arise, such as rolling “The only way to funded by our creature animation into design a product for the other projects. the environment’s general new platforms seemed to malevolence, it helps the be to focus on the things We’re putting artist build an even richer that sell and then replicate mostly our own world without extra effort. them,” explains studio “Every [enemy] does co-founder Tameem money into this” attack moves,” says Antoniades. “Which isn’t technical art director Stuart Adcock. then a creative endeavour, it’s hard graft.” “If we can take certain frames from an For a successful pitch in today’s attack move and stitch them together, we climate, Antoniades believes publishers can make interesting sculptures for the need to guarantee sales of “about four or world that feel quite hellish by reusing five million” – numbers that don’t match some of the work effort that we’ve put in.” up with the projected sales of the games One core area of cost-saving is a Ninja Theory wants to build. And it’s for new approach to performance capture. this reason that its new game, Hellblade, “It’s an incredibly expensive thing to do, has three important words cut into its but you get incredible quality out of doing reveal trailer: an independent game. it,” says Matthews. “We’re currently in “Hellblade is about us creating the process of thinking, ‘How do we do something that’s ours,” Antoniades says. this? How do we get the same results “We can steer it into the future, be its but without the huge expenditure?’” protector and shepherd it. Hellblade is Homebrew appears to be the answer, not funded by our other projects. We’re with the studio’s biggest meeting room putting mostly our own money into this.”
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Tameem Antoniades, co-founder of Ninja Theory, also serves as the chief creative director for Hellblade
converted into a makeshift capture area full of GoPro cameras, phones and Ikeasourced poles, with team members test running the setup while sporting selfprinted sticky-backed markers. All this experimentation is contained within the Hellblade project in the hope that success will deliver a blueprint for future titles. “If we can prove that this one works and that it can be a success, I think funding opportunities will come easier over time,” says Antoniades. “Some of that might be to go to publishers like they’re distributors in the same way as independent movies: they’d advance some of the money to make it, you’d put in some of your own money, and you’re still in control of what happens.”
Antoniades readily admits the studio’s still trying to work out the business strategy. In its latest development diary, the team asked potential fans what merchandise they want to buy to help fund development, and at GDC Europe Antoniades announced an initiative in partnership with Epic to create online classes and workshops for university students and hobbyists interested in the development process. But for Ninja Theory’s co-founder, this project is a chance to cultivate a future in which he can take more creative risks – and for other studios to learn from Ninja Theory’s ultimate triumph or failure. “I want the industry to be a good place where creative studios are making good, fun games, and it’s competitive and it’s exciting and there’s a spark to it. It’s not pleasant that so many studios have gone under. It doesn’t make us feel like, ‘A-ha! We’re standing! We’re surviving!’ It’s a miserable landscape. You should be able to earn a decent living making good, fun things that people want.” n