Thu, Mar 17, 2011 | 21:03 GMT

Housemarque’s side-scroller Outland hitting PSN this spring, has online co-op

Housemarque’s side-scrolling, action-puzzler Outland is slated for PSN this spring, and the US PS Blog has a first look up for you.

According to the site, players step into the shoes of “an urban sophisticate-turned-spiritual warrior,” who is haunted by visions of a “vast wheel, endlessly turning,” and “maddened by the visions and unable to find relief, the protagonist seeks out a mystic shaman who guides him on a path of spiritual awakening and alerts him to a timeless, cyclical battle with a pair of god-like Sisters who created the world and now seek to destroy it.”

Sounds awesome. The final boss battle in the game is also detailed a tiny bit in the piece by the game’s producer Adam Sarasohn.

The game is a single-player experience that starts off with a limited skill set but you will gain abilities and more powerful swords as the game progresses. But it’s not all swinging swords, as there is a twist to things – “a quick tap of the L2 trigger shifts you between blue and red energy alignments,” which will have you shifting alignments in order not to die.

There’s also an Arcade mode featuring a speed-run, and online two-player co-op in either Story or Challenge mode. The reason it does not include split-screen co-op is so each player has full screen so they can “see all the puzzles and not have to make blind jumps.”

You can get more details through the link.

Outland is slated for late-April/early-May.