Sony announces nine PS4 and PS5 games as part of new indie initiative

News by Stephany Nunneley-Jackson News Editor

Published on July 1, 2020

Sony has announced nine indie games as part of a new indie developers initiative which will help spotlight title which may otherwise be overlooked.

Sony has announced nine titles coming to PS4, PS5, or both, which are part of the initiative.

According to Sony's Shuhei Yoshida, the goal is to not only support indies in a competitive market, but to make sure PlayStation is the "best place to develop, find, and play great indie games".

As part of PlayStation Indies, one new indie game will make its way onto PS Now each month, and this will kick off with Hello Neighbor coming to the service in July.

"I’m pleased to formally announce the PlayStation Indies initiative," said Yoshida in a PS Blog post. "With PlayStation Indies, we hope to spotlight and support the best of the best indie games being published on PlayStation and the entire indie community as a whole. Our goal is to make PlayStation the best place to develop, find, and play great indie games.

"The indie community is increasingly important for the future of the video game industry, as AAA game development has grown so financially demanding that big companies are finding it harder to take risks to invest in new concepts that may or may not work. We trust indie developers with strong vision will continue to bring ideas that have never been tried before, creating whole new genres of games and advancing the art and meaning of video games.

"While details are still forthcoming, we are also happy to confirm a new indie title will join the PlayStation Now service every month, starting with Hello Neighbor in July."

The titles announced are: Carto, Creaks, F.I.S.T: Forged In Shadow Torch, Heavenly Bodies, Maquette, Recompile, Worms Rumble, and Where the Heart Is.

Below you will find the list of announced titles along with more information on each.

Carto

Carto is a puzzle adventure coming to PS4. From Humble Games, the title was developed by Sunhead Games it's also coming to PC.

It features a world-shifting puzzle mechanic where you will have to master cartography skills to rearrange pieces of the map. You will connect missing pieces of the map to discover mysterious lands and uncover secrets. You will meet new characters along the way and some will need your help.

Here's a list of features:

Unique puzzle/exploration mechanic: rearrange pieces of your map, and watch the world change around you!
Chill out and explore peaceful-yet-mysterious lands, uncovering secrets and solving environmental puzzles
Bask in lush, hand-drawn visuals and relaxed tunes
Meet new friends and help them solve their problems!
Journey through different biomes, each with their own characters, culture, and a unique evolution of the central map mechanic

Check out the PS4 trailer below. You can also wishlist it on Steam and the Humble Store.

Creaks

Creaks finds you in a mansion where you will hear "barking creatures" lurking in the corridors. In order to see them, you will be able to trap them using a beam of light, and you may find that what you are looking at is an ordinary, everyday object - like a table. This is one of the Key "gameplay mechanics," along with pulling levers, stepping on pressure plates, and manipulating the environment with the goal being to outsmart your enemies. These "shifting creatures" are called creaks.

Here's more:

Aside from the watchers which resemble angry dogs, you will encounter a few more — each of them with different behavior — for example, the spy who copies the main character’s movement. Just remember — don’t touch any of these creatures in their animated form, and you’ll be safe.

The entire story of Creaks takes place in a strange towering mansion. Its otherworldliness might be scary at first, but once you take your time to explore its corners, you will find out that it’s rather magical, diverse, and inhabited by both peaceful avian folk and terrifying creatures.

The creaking house has five different parts, each of them with its vibe and history. The Attic, where you will likely spend the first hour or two, is the most rudimentary of all. Lots of junk is lying around with no intent to be used, and as the entrance to the mansion is guarded by barking watchers. On the other hand, the Towers are all about the deep consciousness and mulling over the universe, and the enemy introduced in this area has a more tranquil vibe.

Collectible paintings are scattered throughout the mansion, some of them hidden in secret rooms, something we hope you trophy hunters will enjoy. These paintings are like windows — objects that, metaphorically put, allow you to look outside of the large cave. They will teach you a little bit about the history of this world, the dreams, desires, and legends of its avian inhabitants.

Adding music to these paintings helped a lot, but we were still looking for more interactivity. We wanted players to be able to play with them. So 11 of those became playable minigames, be it little puzzles very closely connected with what’s happening in the mansion, or a sword-fighting minigame starring two knights.

A release date other than summer was not provided for Creaks.

F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch

F.I.S.T: Forged In Shadow Torch is a "dieselpunk-style action-adventure" which stars a rabbit named Rayton that sports a weaponized metal fist. Releasing on PS4 soon, the premise of the game finds animals fighting back against machines that have invaded the world.

Here's the synopsis:

Meet Rayton. A battle veteran who has spent the last six years in hiding after his city was lost. Yet when his friend is kidnapped by the Machine Legion, this silent yet determined fighter heads back out into the world on a desperate rescue mission. In F.I.S.T., flesh and blood will clash with metal, idealism will war with realism and faiths will be tested

Exploration is a key gameplay mechanic of the genre. Yet unlike open-world titles, an exploration platformer’s areas are usually multiple interconnected ‘rooms,’ the sudden change to the look and feel of your surroundings can be jarring. It erodes cohesion.

It is a city packed with secrets. Some of the best spots in real-world locales are only found through exploration. Numerous hidden areas await, with platform or combat challenges in each, rewarding you with new upgrades or cool collectibles for their completion.

You can find out more about the game by visiting the US PS Blog.

Haven

Developed by Furi studio The Game Bakers, and also coming to Xbox One, is co-op adventure title Haven.

In it, you will live the journey of two lovers who have escaped to a lost planet in order to stay together. You will play as Yu and Kay, a couple who "glide" over the grasslands of said planet.

The game is meant to be a relaxing exploratory experience, so there isn't a quest log but instead a logbook. It helps you remember what to look for on the different fragments of the planet, but there aren't any “tasks to complete” as the logbook will just list what has been done and what is left to do on each fragment.

It has a minimal inventory screen, a health status shown by the color of the character's energy, simple crafting, no weapons or skill tree, and very little HUD and UI. evolve and gain new skills, but the game is not about becoming more powerful.

The game can be played solo and through seamless co-op as a second player can join simply by pressing a button on the gamepad.

Haven is coming to both PS4 and PS5.

Heavenly Bodies

Coming to both PS4 and PS5 is Heavenly Bodies, 2pt Interactive's new game where you take on the role of a cosmonaut tasked with maintaining Earth’s "latest and proudest feat of space engineering." It features both single-player and cooperative play.

The game makes use of the controller by having you use the left and right triggers and analog joysticks to move your left and right arms. You will also be able to control your legs with R1 and L1. Everything in the game was physically simulated so expect ropes, buttons, machines, and your body to react to the lack of gravity, which will also transform how you perform trivial tasks.

It also makes use of the PS5's DualSense controller in order for you to experience the "weight, texture, density, energy, and vibration" of every tool, device, and surface.

Here's more:

With adaptive triggers you can feel:

Objects slip from your grip, such as ropes, or your partner’s desperate fingertips
The density of the object you’re gripping. For example, metal scaffolding will feel cold and hard, whilst a space-suit will feel soft and squishy

With haptic feedback you’ll learn to understand that, in space, your sense of touch means everything:

Feel the ship rattle through your bones as it passes through coarse space debris
Feel a lever snap from its base as you try to close the pod bay doors
Feel the dreadful loss of all sensation as your body is swept into the endless void

A release date was not provided, but you can check the game out in the trailer below.

Maquette

Maquette is a puzzle game, where you will uncover the "memories of a young couple in love." The puzzles come from the "magical rules" of the game world, and how to solve them may not be obvious. Sometimes you will need to think about what makes the game world different from the real world, and how the differences will help you solve the puzzle in a "way that wouldn’t be possible in real life."

The game also features a narrative that takes you on an emotional journey of "love, loss, and acceptance."

Recompile

Recompile is a game where you will explore, fight, and hack your way through a digital landscape as a sentient virus. Your goal is to escape while trying to get into The Mainframe. The ultimate goal is to achieve sapience and "bring about the first technological singularity," as humankind depends on it.

Coming to PS5, the game features platforming, third-person combat, and environmental hacking puzzles. You have the choice as to whether or not to go in "guns blazing" or by hacking enemies to turn them against each other. The environment is also hackable, and certain things (such as locked doors) can be overridden, inverted, or completely disabled.

The game’s entire story takes place within one second, but inside the virtual world, "time is perceived differently." So, as you explore The Mainframe, you’ll discover why you exist in the first place, what you were programmed to do, and how your choices will affect the future.

Recompile is also coming to Xbox Series X and Steam.

Features

Metroidvania progression combined with a unique narrative branching system.
A range of futuristic weapons and super-powered abilities, including a jetpack.
Intense and intelligent combat
Hack through environmental circuitry, logic gates & even enemies.
Multiple endings depending on play style.
Face colossal entities blocking your path to freedom
Reactive soundtrack of blistering electro.

Where The Heart Is

Where the Heart Is, coming this winter to PS4, is a narrative adventure game from Armature. In it, the main character Whit gets lost in a cave and can’t find a way out. While lost, memories of his father will create a new space to explore, and the lines between "the concrete and the imagined will blur together" as you explore Whit’s past and future.

Characters in the game will come as forms of both the past and future and are your connection to the story.

Choices made in the game will be important and have a sense of finality. These decisions will add up over time to create "entirely different gameplay paths and outcomes for the characters," and it won’t be possible to see them all in a single playthrough.

For example, the main character’s brother, Sege, has a place where he goes to escape conflict and you will be able to confront him here. In this situation, you will be able to choose how Whit responds to his brother and your responses help determine where you will eventually find him living, - each will determine a very different version of the man he becomes.

You’ll follow Whit from childhood and up into his twilight years, and find out what becomes of his children.

Worms Rumble

The latest game in the Worms franchise, Worms Rumble, is coming to PC, PS4, and PS5 later this year.

In development at Team17, the game us a real-time multiplayer action game and this time out the worms move faster, allowing you to "roll around the arenas at high speed," perform wall jumps, and dodge.

Worms will have stamina which will drain as you roll or wall jump, so you will need to slow down on occasion to recoup stamina.

The game supports cross-platform multiplayer so you will be able to enjoy a 32-player online experience with others.

Worms Rumble will be released with three game modes: the 32-player Deathmatch and Last Worm Standing, and Last Squad Standing which features ten teams of three players battling it out.

The game is also getting a closed beta which kicks off on July 15. You can sign up here.

Hit up the links for more on the game.