UK-based studio Media Molecule is one of Sony's most inventive, spearheading a 'Play Create Share' philosophy that brought us LittleBigPlanet, Tearaway, and Dreams. Now that work on the latter is all tied up, the team is moving onto its next big project, and little has been made public about it. However, co-founder and former creative director, Mark Healey, has given us a sliver of insight as to what it will be.
As part of an interview with MinnMax (time-stamped above), Healey was asked about the studio's future, and his answer sheds a little light on what it's working on. "I think it's in good hands now," he says, admitting he doesn't know "exactly what state" Media Molecule's next effort it in currently. However, he does reaffirm that it's a new IP, and goes on to say that, from what he understands, it's "more of a game than a creative tool".
For all that it does brilliantly, Dreams was the least "gamey" game the team has made yet. Media Molecule did produce several great (but short) games within it, but was first and foremost intended to be a place for user-made content to run wild and free. It sounds like its next project will be a somewhat more traditional game.
Media Molecule's current creative director is John Beech, who last led development of Tren, a made-in-Dreams game that's well worth playing. It'll be very interesting to see what his creative vision brings to a full-blown, standalone title.
What are you hoping to see in Media Molecule's next game? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source youtu.be, via resetera.com]
Comments 15
All they really need to do is make a fun, colourful platformer and I'll be happy
I still can't believe Sony didn't bring Dreams to PC. If there was anywhere that it was going to flourish, it was there.
Heard it'll be a live service game too...which to be fair LBP was pretty much like that back in the day.
Hopefully it's successful, since Sony hasn't been too kind to their British studios over the past couple of years.
Just give Sackboy back to them and make Little Big Planet 4, didn't sackboy rank quite high in a character poll not long ago? So it's obvious it's a popular IP and will sell well if it's done properly.
@UltimateOtaku91 but Sackboy A Big Adventure was done properly yet it didn't sell particularly well.
@naruball Yes but that was a different style of game compared to the mainline Little Big Planet games, there was no creating your own levels or playing other people's in Big Adventure.
Little Big Planet 3 sold over 5 million yet Sackboy Big Adventure which was on two consoles and PC only sold 1.6 million. Seems people weren't interested either due its naming or play style (or both).
Also LBP games have had over 60 million DLC downloads which is a boat load of extra revenue, something Sackboys Big Adventure didn't have.
Craziness they didn't update dreams for ps5. Could of brought new players to it and get a ps plus game to add out of it.
😕
As someone who has enjoyed creating things in Dreams and LBP1 & 2, this makes me a little sad. There is a hole on my PS5 that it appears will never be filled.
Wouldn't surprise me if Sony shut down Media Molecule as well. They hate creativity, fun and platformers after all.
@UltimateOtaku91 Loved LBP 1 & 2 but just didn't gel with Big Adventure. Tried it and just couldn't be bothered.
We need Sackboy & LBP back - nothing recently has competed with Uncle Jalapeno's Boom Town for sheer multiplayer laughs!
Odd that only recently, Sony's inept engineers just shut down the PS4 accessible LBP 3 servers (rather than fixing the security holes) even though MM had only just uploaded all the official content/textures/gadgets, etc. from the 'stuck on PS3' games!!
Happy enough with that. Tearaway is great despite the lack of creative elements and I think MM need a few wins under their belt before going back to developing a creative tool for a while
@naruball If you are/were pretty into the LBP fandom at the time, you’ll likely remember that LBP3 was a catastrophic release that not only caused lasting harm to the reputation of the IP, but was also never fixed. Even at its peak, and despite being cross gen on PS3 and PS4, LBP2 was much more popular than LBP3, simply because the game actually functioned online and in creative mode.
Sackboy’s Adventure is a quality title, but it takes time and often more than one good game to earn your reputation back. And with how they have been treating the LBP games over the years, I doubt they will recover anytime soon.
@greengecko007 I played LBP3 and it was the furthest thing from a catastrophic release. Yes, it had its issues, but people like to exaggerate.
"Sackboy’s Adventure is a quality title, but it takes time and often more than one good game to earn your reputation back."
I disagree to some extent. We've seen games with terrible releases (No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk) earn their reputation back without the need to wait for the release of several games.
And let's not forget how Tearaway on ps4 was a huge flop, despite being an excellent game. Other games that are excellent have also failed to sell well despite being great. Platformers haven't done well on a ps console in quite a while.
@naruball User mileage may vary, but considering I published almost 20 levels across LBP1 and LBP2 and couldn't complete anything in LBP3 due to technical reasons, I would call it a failure on all counts. Losing work due to game crashes and profile saved data corruption was a constant threat. User generated content for LBP3 never really took off the same way LBP2 did, and its entirely because it wasn't worth the headache of trying to work with a creation suite in an unstable game.
I guess it's more accurate to say; when you release a game in that kind of state, it takes a lot of work to earn back your reputation. Sure Hello Games earned back a lot of goodwill, but that was by constantly improving No Man's Sky for the past... 7 years? Same difference really...
By comparison, LBP3 was never fixed. Since then the series has seen 1 spinoff game that was good, and more recently made headlines for shutting down online servers for the games, killing off a huge legacy. Not exactly a thriving IP that people are confident in.
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