The next Tron game is a continuation of Tron: Identitybut it is also something completely new. Where Tron: Identity It was a visual novel, Tron: catalyst is an isometric action game with a looping narrative and will arrive on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series x/S and Switch in 2025. Tron: catalyst is in development at Bithell Games, the award-winning studio behind Tron: Identity, John Wick Hex and Thomas was alone.
In Tron: catalystPlayers return to Arq Grid, a virtual world that has evolved without human intervention, creating a Galapagos Islands silo-like space populated by sentient computer programs. The protagonist is Exo, a program that can relive time segments by exploiting a system-level glitch that no one else can sense. She's on a mission to discover and stop the nasty goals of Arq Grid's overlords, sniffing out secrets and avoiding enemies with each new loop.
Combat includes melee and ranged attacks, and Exo will collect data fragments that grant him new abilities as the game progresses. Exo's Identity Disk is a crucial tool in their fight to stabilize Arq Grid, and one thing players will do with it is customize their upgrade paths.
“As you play, all the combat flows from your identity disk, but you'll be able to upgrade that disk to suit the type of action you want,” Bithell Games founder Mike Bithell said during a conference. media preview Tron: catalyst. She showed off a discus kick, a ranged move that (appropriately) allowed Exo to kick her discus towards enemies around her, between melee slashes and standard throws. In addition to the parkour course, players will also be able to ride light bicycles.
Tron: catalyst It will make a lot of sense even if you haven't played Identitybut anyone who played the first installment will encounter some familiar faces and places. The new game is a narrative experience where players' choices have a small but noticeable impact on the world around them. The game features voice acting for main characters and in pivotal scenes.
“We have a text-based dialogue system here,” Bithell said. “This is sometimes linear in that sense. The player can also make dialogue decisions. The game is very simple with its action, so there isn't a lot of branching, but it allows you to be expressive. So as a player, you can decide if you want to be sarcastic with people, polite with people and make some decisions, for example, choose whether you want to lie to this character or not, and you will see the echoes. of that in the interactions of your characters.”
In the demo, Exo had the mission of releasing their identity album; In the first loop, she fought her way through stages of enemies to access a club and talk to the right character, who then sent her on an escort mission to prove her worth. You completed it, wiped your disk, and restarted the cycle. The second time, he didn't need to fight with anyone because his identity disk was clean. From that moment on, the city opened up to Exo in a new way.
Tron: catalyst It's not an open-world game, but it is made up of multiple “big levels,” as Bithell called them.
He added: “We probably need to find a better term.”
Essentially, Tron: catalyst It is made up of multiple large hubs that take players from city streets to rooftop penthouses, providing many points of interest even after multiple loops. As players explore, they'll be able to add shortcut codes to the Exo drive, taking some of the tedium out of gameplay.
“When you travel somewhere, you can take a taxi to the hotel, but then once you start to feel comfortable, you can go to a nearby coffee shop,” Bithell said. “Slowly, in ever-widening concentric circles, a kind of iterative exploration occurs. That's something we've really tried to achieve here. “So as you play, you’re developing that knowledge of space and how to use it.”
Characters from the world of Tron: catalyst don't change from cycle to cycle: at the beginning of each cycle, everyone returns to their original place and does what they were originally doing. Still, Exo's perception of each situation changes with each updated loop, revealing new paths, and the world reacts according to the edits on his identity disk.
“It's supposed to be a game about playing with those relationships and exploring how characters can be influenced and change their minds,” Bithell said. “There's a lot going on there, but it's different than helldefinitely. It's not a 100-loop roguelite. It's not that kind of game. “It’s much more story-based.”
Bithell Games has a team of about 20 developers working on Tron: catalystand is being published by Devolver Digital's new hub for licensed indie games, Big Fan. Of course, Disney is also involved; technically the full name of the new game is Disney Tron: Catalystso don't be alarmed if it appears higher in your literate library than expected once it arrives in 2025.
