The upcoming launch of Solar Ash fuses some of gaming's most visually stunning titles into a single, eye-popping adventure. Solar Ash takes the bright and bold art style of Hyper Light Drifter, the fluid movement and combat of The Pathless, and the monolithic bosses of Shadow of Colossus to create a 3D platforming experience all of its own.
Developer Heart Machine premiered a Solar Ash gameplay trailer during PlayStation's February 2021 State of Play event. Creative Director Alx Preston walked viewers through the basics of game's story, core gameplay, a handful of levels, and the enemies players can expect to see if they choose to pick the colorful platformer game upon release. The trailer was chock full of details that might have slipped under the radar among all of the PlayStation 5 excitement.
Solar Ash was introduced during Sony's June 2020 State of Play, but there's a lot more to unpack this time. The title managed to stand out from the rest of its PS5 counterparts with its out-of-this-world color palette and minimalistic aesthetic, compared to other, more photorealistic games featured in the livestream. Here's everything there is to know about Solar Ash so far.
Heart Machine announced Solar Ash will release sometime in 2021 but didn't provide a specific release date. In an episode of the Humans Who Make Games podcast, Preston revealed Heart Machine began developing the title in 2016. That means Solar Ash has been in the works for more than four years, but the wait will be over soon, as it's slated to arrive before the end of December 2021, barring any unexpected delays.
Solar Ash is the second game developed by Heart Machine, and it will be the first 3D game in its repertoire. Before Solar Ash, the developer self-published Hyper Light Drifter in 2016, a 2D, top-down, hack-and-slash action game. It has a colorful aesthetic similar to Solar Ash, but it is designed in a pixelated art style. Heart Machine's debut release received favorable reviews across the board and clearly inspired its vision for the more ambitious Solar Ash, but the two won't be directly connected to one another.
The developer confirmed that, while Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash occur in the same universe, the upcoming game won't be a sequel to its 2016 title. Instead, Solar Ash will focus on a new protagonist and include spoken dialog, which was absent from Hyper Light Drifter.
Even though two Solar Ash updates were aired during separate Sony's State of Play announcements, it won't be a PS5 exclusive. The game will launch on PS4, as well as the Epic Games Store for PC users, sometime in 2021. Hearth Machine won't immediately release Solar Ash on Xbox or Nintendo Switch, but, seeing as Hyper Light Drifter made it to both of those platforms, there's a possibility they could see Solar Ash ports further down the line.
Solar Ash takes place inside a giant black hole known as the Ultravoid, which has been devastating everything in its wake. The game's protagonist, Rei, belongs to a race of interdimensional beings called the Voidrunners. She wields superhuman agility and the power to unleash a flurry of deadly slashes against her foes. Rei needs to venture into the Ultravoid to stop a supernatural corruption causing it to be so destructive.
The trailer describes the game's massive bosses, known as Sentinels, as holding the key to Rei's quest. It's unclear if an evil force controls these creatures or if their existence is what created the Ultravoid. Heart Machine hasn't confirmed every last detail of Solar Ash's plot, but it appears Rei to defeat various Sentinels until the Ultravoid has been quelled. The developer also showcased one of these bosses in the gameplay trailer, which resembled a skeletal serpent that roams the skies.
Solar Ash's gameplay is heavily focused on the fluid traversal of its world. Ashen Clouds are found littering the Ultravoid's ground and resemble a teal, viscous fluid. Rei can skid across this material to build up her horizontal speed. Climbing walls only seems possible when vertical surfaces are covered in a black, tar-like substance. Some patches of this goo might appear out of reach, so Rei will need to build up enough speed on Ashen Clouds to leap up to them. Rei also possesses a grappling ability that appears to only be usable on white ooze that appears on ledges or in the air, allowing her to swing or reach the top of a cliff. Mastering how to maneuver across Solar Ash's colorful environments seems key to dodging enemy attacks and approaching the behemoth bosses Rei will come up against.
Solar Ash's open-world design might make it difficult to understand where Rei needs to go to progress through the story. Heart Machine appears to have addressed this potential problem by adding trails of pink goo globs, much like The Pathless's traversal, that are either an in-game currency or somehow power up Rei's combat abilities, which haven't been explained in detail yet.
Preston described Solar Ash's combat as "simple, fast, and fluid." The gameplay trailer makes it seem like Rei only has one attack button that players can repeatedly press to have her unleash a combination of slashes. If true, this could be starkly different from the various enemy archetypes she will encounter, which each have their own unique attacks and specific weaknesses.
While Hearth Machine has teased its plans for Solar Ash a couple of times already, there's still a lot left to be revealed. The game will likely drop within the next few months, and in the meantime, its developer could continue to hint at even more secrets that lurk in the Ultravoid.
Solar Ash will launch on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 sometime in 2021.
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