In its next Tron game, Bithell Games is doing a Groundhog Day on The Grid
Last week, Thomas Was Alone and Tron: Identity developer Bithell Games revealed Tron: Catalyst, its next entry in Disney's universe of identity discs, lightcycles, and lovely neon piping. With Catalyst, Bithell Games is trading the visual novel gameplay of Tron: Identity for a time-looping isometric action adventure, featuring a rogue program's attempt to escape her city's digital despots.
Tron: Catalyst is set in the Arq Grid—a different digital world from the Grid of the Tron movies. Introduced in Tron: Identity, the Arq Grid was created as a sanctuary for its virtual inhabitants to live without any contact with human Users. Unfortunately for Catalyst's protagonist Exo, the Arq Grid is going haywire: Glitches have the Grid caught in a time loop, and she's the only one who can tell.
After an exploding package grants Exo mysterious powers, she's hunted by the Core—the Arq Grid's despotic rulers. Luckily, her new powers let her keep her memories every time the Grid's time loop resets, allowing her to discover secrets, unlock abilities, and gain access to new areas that she carries forward in each cycle.
Along the way, Exo will be doing a lot of lightcycle chases and identity disc combat. I caught a glimpse of Tron: Catalyst's isometric combat during a preview back in September. Exo fights nimbly, transitioning between close-range swipes and long-range disc throws. Throughout the game, she'll earn upgrades that'll provide opportunities to shape her combat style, like a "Disc Kick" that lets you kick her disc after it rebounds from a throw for a quick follow-up attack.
Despite its top-down gameplay, Bithell Games is adding a lot of verticality to Exo's exploration of the Arq Grid cityscape. "Something we talked about as a team was how to make a game feel like getting to know a place," creative director Mike Bithell said during the preview demo.
The answer, Bithell said, was to build the time loops as "ever-increasing concentric circles of exploration," with Exo continually unlocking shortcut codes that'll provide quicker access to areas when she returns. In the demo, Exo unlocked a code for rooftop access, so she can move across rooftops rather than having to fight through street-level Core thugs during subsequent loops.
Despite the time-looping, Bithell says Tron: Catalyst is a story-driven experience, not a looping roguelike. By incorporating multiple playthroughs into the game's story itself while the player character is aware of it, Bithell said the team wanted to "make a game that plays with the idea of what games are" through the eyes of someone who's "almost a program that's unlocking god mode."
While Tron: Catalyst will build on story elements from Tron: Identity, Bithell said Catalyst will be "definitely accessible" to newcomers; playing through the studio's last Tron game won't be required to understand what's going on. Mostly, you'll just need to understand that lightcycles are cool.
Tron: Catalyst is set to release sometime in 2025.