Sometimes the best surprises in life are the ones that you don't expect – but we'd give pause before describing Atom Universe as a pleasant shock. Suspiciously dropped onto the European PlayStation Store today with virtually zero fanfare, this is the next-gen social hovel that you've been yearning for ever since PlayStation Home shutdown last week – except it's currently single player only and very much a work in progress.
To be blunt, we've got no idea why this exists or why Sony has even allowed it to be released. A sampler for a much bigger project currently on Kickstarter, this Atom Republic developed (anti-) social space sees you taking control of an ugly avatar and exploring a theme park. You can possess any one of the other people peppered around the Unreal Engine 4 powered scene, and shake their hands or give them piggy back rides.
Clearly, this is all meant to demonstrate what the experience will be like when the world is bustling with other online players – without the insults and horny teenagers descending upon every female avatar like a swarm of bees. There's a Ferris wheel that you can ride in, but a quick push of the circle button will see you hurtling to the ground beneath you. Don't worry, though, as there's no concept of death in this cheerful otherworld.
In fact the closest that you'll get to such a thing is murder on the dancefloor, as, being a spiritual successor to PlayStation Home, there are plenty of areas for you to strut your virtual stuff. Dance moves can be brought up from a radial menu, with Gangnam Style among the many options. To be fair, the animations here do seem much better than PlayStation Home's ever did, so if you're looking for a communal dancing game, then you may be in luck.
There's also a shooting gallery minigame in this demo-cum-proof-of-concept, but while it looks nice, it doesn't really serve any purpose yet. And that's about it for this weird work in progress so far – well, apart from a football that you can awkwardly kick around. Ignore the London Studio-inspired art direction and there are some nice lighting effects on display – but that's one of the few positive things that we can say.
The developer's talking a good game at least, claiming that there'll be a couple of car racing minigames available when the project properly launches – and these will be complemented by bi-monthly content drops thereafter. It also sounds like it's going after the PlayStation Home model, by providing other developers (and, later, its community) with the tools required to make new spaces, attractions, and clothes.
But it's also got a team of six people working on this, and even with a collective 100 years of development experience between them, it strikes us as unlikely that it'll ever be able to match the admittedly complex infrastructure of Sony's own Second Life clone. It's already got the £20,000 funding that it requires on Kickstarter, so perhaps we're alone with these concerns – but hey, the point's got to be made.
Fair play to the small British outfit if it does eventually pull things off, though, as for as much ridicule that PlayStation Home received, it clearly cultivated a fervent community of fans. We suppose that if Atom Universe can come anywhere close to matching that, then the teensy team at Atom Republic will have succeeded. On the basis of this bizarre playable public teaser, though, it's got a lot of sleepless nights ahead.
Have you already taken a tour of Atom Universe? Are you looking for a PlayStation Home type experience on your PS4? Dance the night away in the comments section below.
Comments 27
O_O.... that Gif... LOL
@Volmun Couldn't resist!
If they can pull it off and not have the ridiculous loading times that PlayStation Home had it could be a great social app. It would also be pretty cool in Sony's new VR headset.
Wow, fair dos, that looks pretty appalling. Everyone looks like they are ice skating. You'd think if they are developing it for this Gen they'd try a little harder. If I was producing a teaser, in an attempt to gain support, I'd at least try and get something as basic as walk timing correct and not have other people floating 6 inches above the floor.
I liked the concept of playstation home. They just did little to nothing with it for many years. If they put real effort into this it could be magical and engaging. I'm rooting for them but wouldn't hold my breathe based on the past.
Its a hilarious joke, it was dead and i just ran around jumping doing what was apparently the samba. Pointless but surprisingly funny.
Is it only available in PS EU? I'd love to try it, but I live in NA...
There is still a ton of coding that needs to be done, since the template has been laid down but things like scoring systems and basic features have not been implemented yet. It wouldn't surprise me if they are testing the netcode on an inhouse server before they decide to make it public. However, with the small team they are operating with, I am quite amazed with the amount of work they have put into it in such a short amount of time.
Anyone going into the demos has to be realistic with their expectations. As we know, they are small team that is trying to bring us a social environment but for now, on a smaller scale. Anyone who is expecting any of these developers to have pockets and connections as deep as Sony's may be disappointed if they are thinking that third party companies such as Konami, Capcom and EA are going to have a presence in the service.
This is clearly a reset. A back to basics, so to speak. What is most important at the early stages is that they give us an environment to relax in while being able to communicate with friends. Then, as time moves on, build upon that base.
However, if you look at Home, despite all of the third parties that were involved, especially in its early days, Inides really were the backbone of that service. If it wasn't for companies like NDreams, Game Mechanics, Loot, Peakvox, Granzella, Atom Republic, Kovok, Lockwood etc..., Home wouldn't exist. I know and understand that there will be a ton of Pent up anticipation given the fact of how Home came to its untimely end. However, when you have such small teams working on such a big scope, wether users understand it or not, a certain level of respect and patience needs to be shown because at the end of the day, as we know, developers are people too... Or are they, lol .
At the end of the day, I think education about all of these new services is going to play a key factor in bringing the community to a better understanding. Ultimately, I hope the community will eventually realize is that what made home great was being able to visit a virtual world and socialize with friends.
Home was a great service despite all of its shortcomings but people need to come to the realization that despite the fact that these developers have a Home background and in some cases honor that background through nods to the past, at the end of the day, they are creating something new. And if we want it to progress, we need to know the difference between critique vs. criticism.
Its awful. Waste of time, money and effort.
If we can fight with our fists an shoot each other then I'm in.......... It should be like a GTA vibe
Does anyone know on when this will come to NA?
@NomNom @JLPick While writing the article, I think I read somewhere that the demo will appear this week on the NA PS Store, but it would be strange for it to launch outside of the usual PlayStation Store update, so I'm not sure how accurate that is.
I downloaded it & didn't know what it was about & was shocked when i saw it. Thought it was HOME on the PS4 I didn't get it tho & deleted it after 5 minutes of being confused + i think HOME did not have a chance anyway with the gaming press never getting behind it(when it came out there was still pure hate for anything PS3/SONY at the time) :-/ Oh well i guess when MS bring out their version of HOME for the Xbox brand every gaming site will say it's the best thing ever
@get2sammyb When is push square getting an app
Saw the loading screen, deleted it right away.
The loading times is what killed HOME
I only used the old Playstation Home on the PS3 once, didn't understand anything about, and forgot about it. I'm mixed on something like this, purely because it doesn't really appeal to me. But, I'll keep an open mind and give it shot when and if it arrives.
I wish that we could keep all of our stuff from Playstation Home and import to other places, I just scrolled back past that .GIF and I don't think that looks like piggy backing...
@NAZA-187 what's an app?
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi application that u buy or download free from Apple store
@NAZA-187 like a green grocers?
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi No, apps for your phone that u download
why isn't this on South African PS Store were forced to share everything with Europe
@The_Great_WmR I'm not sure what you're saying here. If you're forced to share everything with Europe then you'd have this game. It's available in Europe. Doesn't sound like you're missing much, though.
@NomNom Just make an EU PSN account. I've got my actual EU account, a NA one and a JP one. It's interesting browsing the different stores and seeing the differences.
@Matroska We have to use European servers and all prices on ps store must be equivalent to euros or pounds but when it comes to games and app were left out
@Carl-G how do you download it on the PS4 ?
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