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PlayStation showed off 7 radical indie games today

By Tomas Franzese February 10, 2022

On February 10, PlayStation highlighted seven new indie games in the works for PS4, PS5, and PlayStation VR. While none of the announcements were on the level of yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, quite a few unique games still got their time in the spotlight. These are the seven intriguing indie games that PlayStation highlighted.

Contents

Moss: Book II
Animal Well
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Post Void
Salt and Sacrifice
Samurai Gunn 2
Hello Neighbor 2

Moss: Book II

Quill approaches a giant tree with a marking on it in Moss: Book II.

The first game PlayStation showed was the sequel to Moss, one of the best VR games out there. It got a PlayStation Blog post mainly focused on world design. Polyarc explained how rooms are much bigger and interconnected in Moss: Book II, so players will have a chance to revisit areas they like and see them from different angles. Moss: Book II will be released this Spring, so it doesn’t look like it will be available on the PlayStation VR2.

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Animal Well

Animal Well - Announcement Trailer | PS5

Next, PlayStation showed a platformer for PS5 called Animal Well with a trailer and PlayStation Blog post. Just one person made this minimalist pixel-art platformer, and they plan to incorporate survival horror elements and mind-bending puzzles and secrets into the game. Animal Well will be released for PS5 sometime in late 2022 or early 2023.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - Splinter Reveal Trailer | PS4

The highlight of today’s wave of indie game announcements was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. A new trailer for the game was released and confirmed that Master Splinter is playable. This is the first time he’s been playable in a TMNT game, and his move set is packed with plenty of references to the show. A gameplay video with commentary that lasts nearly nine minutes was also uploaded and gave us our first good uncut look at how Shredder’s Revenge will play. For fans of classic beat ’em up, specifically, the TMNT ones, Shredder’s Revenge looks like it will be a blast from the past. It launches later this year.

Post Void

Post Void - Announcement Trailer | PS4

Post Void takes the prize for the weirdest announcement. The previously released PC game is like a mix between Cruelty Squad and Doom. It’s a roguelike with psychedelic visuals where players will have to move fast or die. It will be released for PS4 and PS5 this spring.

Salt and Sacrifice

Salt and Sacrifice - Release Date Announce Trailer | PS5, PS4

Salt and Sacrifice is a sequel to Salt and Sanctuary, a Dark Souls-inspired sidescrolling action game and one of the most notable PlayStation indie games. In a new trailer and PlayStation Blog post, the developers highlighted the PvP element of Salt and Sacrifice and confirmed that it will be released for PS4 and PS5 on May 10.

Samurai Gunn 2

Samurai Gunn 2 - Announcement Trailer | PS5

Samurai Gunn 2 is a fighting game where characters die in just one hit. With a new trailer and PlayStation Blog post, its developers confirmed that the game would come to PS5 and feature crossover characters and stages from popular indie games like Among Us, Spelunky 2, and Minit.

Hello Neighbor 2

Hello Neighbor 2 - Pre-Order Trailer | PS5, PS4

As the final indie announcement of the day, tinyBuild games confirmed that Hello Neighbor 2 is coming to PS4 and PS5. The Hello Neighbor games are popular with streamers as players try to survey and escape the grasp of a cast of creepy characters. Those who pre-order the game can try a bet on April 7.

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Topics

Gaming

PlayStation Plus Premium is off to a rough start overseas

A person plays Crash Bandicoot using a PS5 DualSense controller.

As gamers debate whether Xbox Game Pass burnout is actually here, Sony is launching its own enhanced PlayStation Plus subscription service on PS4 and PS5. New higher PlayStation Plus tiers started rolling out in Asia on May 23 and will make their way to the rest of the world over the next month. Unfortunately, a couple of issues already seem to be plaguing PlayStation Plus Premium during its first days on the market.
From how much people have to pay for the service to how the retro games themselves play, customers are running into a slew of problems with Sony's service. While it's a rough start for PlayStation Plus Premium and its chances compared to the notable success of Xbox Game Pass, Sony's project isn't quite doomed.
A lacking game library
While this issue is subjective depending on how many games you've played and what you're looking for out of this subscription service, the launch library for PlayStation Plus Premium has been largely painted as underwhelming by fans. Even if it's a bit better than what a blog post earlier this month initially suggested, it mainly contains PS4 games a lot of hardcore PlayStation fans like myself have already paid for and played. Some questionable games like Balan Wonderworld and Mighty No. 9 also stand out even more thanks to the limited selection.
Introducing the all-new PlayStation Plus | PS5 & PS4 Games
The PS1, PSP, and PS2 game lineups are thin at launch, with major franchises like Sly Cooper and Metal Gear Solid completely missing. Trophy support isn't ubiquitous across all retro games, which is frustrating for trophy hunters. PS3 games are not natively emulated on the console; they stream from the cloud and don't include DLC originally released for them, according to VGC.
While this differs from person to person, the PlayStation Plus Premium lineup is starting off on shaky ground compared to Xbox Game Pass, which already gets flack for whether it has a good month or not.
Problems playing games
Unfortunately, there aren't just subjective problems with the library, as Sony actively seems to be releasing poor versions of classic PS1 games onto the service. According to VGC, the first-party PS1 games in the PlayStation Plus Deluxe tier -- the highest tier in Southeast Asia where the service has started rolling out -- are based on the PAL versions of each game, not the NTSC version. PAL PS1 games only run at a 50Hz refresh rate because they had to accommodate the dominant video format in places like Europe and Australia. Meanwhile, North American players experienced the NTSC versions of these PS1 games, which run at a 60Hz refresh rate.
If Sony uses the PAL versions of its PS1 games when the service expands to North America, then those retro games on the PlayStation Plus Premium tier will run slower than North American players experienced in the 1990s. We don't know for sure if the North American version of the service will use the PAL versions just yet, but it's still a worrying development as the PlayStation Classic also had this problem. Some technical issues in games like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee are also being reported by VGC, raising further questions about the quality of the classic PS1 ports. Playing retro games seems to be a rougher experience on PlayStation than trying original Xbox and 360 games on Xbox Game Pass, even if it's nice that Sony finally acknowledged its back catalog of classics.

Upgrading memberships is messy
Players who bought lots of PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Now subscriptions at a discounted rate in hopes of converting them to higher-tiered subscriptions were met with disappointment on May 23. Sony reportedly requires players to pay the difference of their discount if they want to upgrade to the more expensive tiers. Couple this with the fact that you must upgrade for the rest of your current subscription, not just a few months or a year of Extra or Premium, and some players are having to pay much more than they expected to upgrade PlayStation Plus.
Yes, buying several years of PlayStation Plus or PS Now at a discounted rate in anticipation of the service for cheaper is gaming the system a bit. However, PlayStation's decision to surcharge the fans that are prepared to embrace PlayStation Plus Premium in this way doesn't feel like the best judgment call for a new service hoping to earn players' trust.
Is PlayStation Plus Premium doomed?
Despite these issues, PlayStation Plus Premium isn't doomed to fail.
Any new subscription service will have its fair share of problems, especially right out of the gate. Xbox Game Pass was not an overnight success; it had years to build up to become the popular (and sometimes controversial) subscription service it is today. The game library will improve over time as Sony makes more deals with companies for current-gen games and continues to port older PS1, PSP, and PS2 games to the service. They still have a chance to make sure it's the NTSC versions of the games available in North America, so we aren't playing slower versions of these classics. And once PlayStation Plus Premium's launch is months or years behind us, these discount surcharges won't matter to subscribers as much anymore.
Hopefully, Sony can learn from and correct these mistakes as PlayStation Plus Premium rolls out worldwide and subscribers utilize it for an extended period of time. If it does, PlayStation Plus Premium can be the Xbox Game Pass alternative that PlayStation users seem to want, rather than a rough first draft of something that Xbox is already doing pretty well.

Gaming

PlayStation Plus gets a Game Pass-like revamp this June

In an early-morning post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony officially revealed the rumored Project Spartacus, its competitor to Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass subscription service. It doesn't actually have that name though. Instead, it's an expansion of Sony's existing PlayStation Plus online subscription service, which has been divvied up into three tiers.

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1508776231046729728

Gaming

Wii and GameCube emulator Dolphin is coming to Steam

Mario Kart Wii running on the Dolphin emulator.

Dolphin, a popular video game emulator for Wii and GameCube games, is currently set to hit Steam Early Access later this year.
The emulation software's Steam store page went live today. Although the page's software description can't directly name Nintendo's consoles, Dolphin Emulator's Steam description boasts about how it can play "classics from the big N's cube-shaped and motion-controlled consoles" in 4K with modern controller support, hacked widescreen and HD texture packs, better frame rates, local multiplayer, save states, slow motion, and turbo button presses.
It also reiterates that Dolphin itself doesn't come with or pirate any Nintendo games, instead positioning itself as a "tool to run legally obtained copies of these games" after someone has converted them into a compatible format. It'll certainly be interesting to see if that framing is good enough to prevent Nintendo from taking Dolphin Emulator off Steam.

When Dolphin Emulator is added to Steam in the second quarter of 2023, it'll be free, but also in early access. Its volunteer developers are aiming to exit early access by the end of 2023 after adding "better Steam integration and a more streamlined UI for Steam Deck users." Valve's Steam Deck handheld has already proven itself to be a haven for video game emulation, and Dolphin Emulator being available on Steam will only make that process even easier. While most GameCube and Wii games aren't available on Switch, the company has long been against emulation of its titles. As such, we'll definitely be keeping an eye on this to see if Dolphin Emulator makes actually launhes on Steam.
Dolphin Emulator will be released on Steam in the second quarter of 2023.