PS4 Shooters Are Getting Pretty Weird

PS4 Shooters Are Getting Pretty Weird

Sony has long had a gaping, Killzone-sized hole in its roster of PlayStation exclusive titles. This has left it shuffling behind arch-rival Microsoft, a company that’s always seemed to have a finger of the dudebro’s pulse when it comes to figuring out what people want from their shooters: Halo, Gears of War, Titanfall.

If a new mesmerising-looking shooter Sony revealed today for the PlayStation 4 is any indication, the company is sticking with its indie-friendly route rather than trying to lock horns with the titan. I mean, the company has already made plans to bring a number of quirky shooters like Jamestown, PixelJunk Shooter, and Velocity 2X to the system alongside heavyweights like Destiny and the new Wolfenstein. And now its stepping even further off the beaten path with an exclusive first-person shooter called VizionEck in which you play as…a cube?

Here’s VizionEck founder Michael Armbrust on the cube, named Ranger:

He’s pretty simplistic in design, isn’t he? VizionEck’s art-style is focused on being clean and elegant. We really love the prospect of making a game that’s mathematically “exact.” Almost everything follows a strict set of rules. The resulting world feels extremely harmonious 99% of the time.

It also creates a great environment for the gameplay. One example of this is how VizionEck’s health system works. As a Ranger, your health is displayed as the brightness of your outlines. Solid white and you’re as healthy as an ox. Almost black and you’re on the brink of destruction. Even the smallest enemy shot would mark your end.

This actually has its advantages. The less health you have, the harder it is for enemies to see your outlines. Positioning yourself over a large black surface makes your cube practically invisible. Sneaking up on another player becomes easy.

The game’s announcement trailer doesn’t do much to show how this gameplay works in action. And at face value, VizionEck looks like it could have just been pulled from Alexander Bruce’s cutting room floor after he was done making that glorious headtrip Antichamber.

But hey: anything to break up the monotony, right? As Kotaku’s very own Mark Serrells asked this week: aren’t we getting “a little tired of shooting things in the face?”

I know I am. So why not try cubes instead?


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