The next Tron game is its sequel Tron: Identityit is also something completely new. Where Tron: Identity was a visual novel, Tron: Catalyst is an isometric action game with a twisting story and is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch in 2025. Tron: Catalyst developed at Bithell Games, the award-winning studio behind it Tron: Identity, John Wick Hex and Thomas was Alone.
In Tron: Catalystplayers return to the Arg Grid, a virtual world that thrives without human intervention, and create a Galapagos Islands-style space filled with sentient computer programs. The protagonist is Exo, a program that can relive segments of time by exploiting a system-level glitch that no one can sense. He’s on a mission to uncover and stop the nefarious goals of the Arg Grid’s masters, uncovering secrets and outwitting enemies with each new twist.
Combat involves melee and ranged attacks, and as the game progresses, Exo will collect bits of information that give him new abilities. Exo’s personality disc is an important tool in his fight to stabilize the Arg Grid, and one thing players will do with it is customize their upgrade paths.
“When you play, all the combat flows from your personality disc, but you’ll be able to upgrade that disc to provide the action you want,” said Mike Bithell, founder of Bithell Games. media preview Tron: Catalyst. He showed off a discus kick, which (appropriately) allowed Exo to kick his disc back at enemies surrounding him, between melee slices and standard shots. On top of the parkour traverse, players will also be able to ride light circuits.
Tron: Catalyst It will make perfect sense even if you haven’t played it Personalityhowever, anyone who plays the first installment will encounter a few familiar faces and locals. The new game is a story-driven experience where players’ choices have small but noticeable effects on the world around them. The game features voice acting for the main characters and key scenes.
“We have a text-based dialogue system here,” Bithell said. “It’s linear in that way sometimes. The player can also make dialogue choices. The game is very straight forward with its actions, so there isn’t a huge amount of branching, but it does allow you to be expressive. So, as a player, you can decide whether you want to be angry with people, be nice to people, and make some choices – for example, choose whether you want to lie to that character or not, and you’ll see the repercussions. it interacts with your character.”
In the demo, Exo was on a mission to edit an identity disc – in the first round, he fought through enemy stages to get into a club and talk to the right character, then sent him on an escort mission. to prove its worth. It’s done, wipe the disc and start the loop again. The second time, he didn’t need to fight anyone because the identity disc scanned clean. From that moment on, the city was open to Exo in a new way.
Tron: Catalyst is not an open-world game, but contains many “huge levels” as Bithell puts it.
He added: “We should probably come up with a better term.”
Basically, Tron: Catalyst consists of multiple large hubs that take players from city streets to rooftop penthouses, providing multiple points of interest even after multiple turns. As players explore, they’ll be able to add shortcuts to the Echo drive, taking some of the tedium out of playthroughs.
“When you’re traveling somewhere, you might take a cab to the hotel, but then when you start to relax, you can go to a nearby coffee shop,” Bithell said. “Slowly, in ever-increasing concentric circles, a kind of iterative exploration. That’s really what we’re trying to capture here. So as you play the game, you build this knowledge of space and how to use it.”
Characters around the world Tron: Catalyst don’t change cycle to cycle — at the beginning of each cycle, everyone returns to their original position, doing what they did before. Still, Exo’s perception of each situation changes with each updated twist, opening up new paths and the world reacting to the edits on his personality disc.
“It’s a game designed to play with those relationships and explore how characters can influence and change their minds,” Bithell said. “There’s a lot there, but it’s different Helldefinitely. This is not a 100 round roguelite. It’s not that kind of game. It’s more story-driven.”
Bithell Games has a team of about 20 developers working on it Tron: Catalystand it is 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 Disney Tron: Catalystso don’t worry if it appears higher than expected in your alphabetized library in 2025.
