There’s real excitement among the PlayStation fanbase following God of War’s outstanding reviews. Much like with Horizon: Zero Dawn last year, Sony’s first-party has done it again – except this time Kratos has actually exceeded all expectations and landed the highest-rated PlayStation 4 exclusive to date. And it’s just the start of what’s shaping up to be a barnstorming 2018 for the Japanese giant’s machine: there’s still Detroit: Become Human, Spider-Man, and several others to come.

Review comments across the web are awash with a similar sentiment, as fans sing the praises of Worldwide Studios and also point to other upcoming projects, like Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding, and The Last of Us: Part II. But what of Dreams? The long-in-development creation engine from Media Molecule seems to be getting slept on, and while it still has much to prove on a commercial front, we reckon the quirky release has critical darling written all over it.

We suppose the indifference makes sense in some ways. The Guildford-based developer has been quite proactive showing the project on streams and at conventions like GDC, but without a release date, it hasn’t really been given any meaningful marketing push yet. The title’s due out later this year and a beta is imminent apparently, but ever since its three-pronged campaign was revealed late last year, there hasn’t been a whole lot of noise coming out of Media Molecule at all.

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This is surely the biggest reason for Dreams getting overlooked, but Sony’s still got a helluva public relations campaign to run. Very few actually understand what the game is and what it’s able to do, while many more will have seen some of the ugly assets released for it and raised an eyebrow. For a studio that created Sackboy, we’re still not entirely sure why it’s leading with a teddy bear wielding a mallet, but it’s probably too late to change course now.

Of course, the good news is that the game is all about imagination, and so Francis is merely going to end up the character on the box. This is a game that, mind bogglingly, enables you to compose music, create games, paint pictures, and direct movies – all with a DualShock 4 or a PlayStation Move controller. From a software perspective, this is as innovative as new releases come – the way in which it all works is absurd.

It’s for this reason that Dreams is destined to win a lot of awards. We’re not talking about Geoff Keighley’s kind of awards either; we’re more referring to higher-brow software engineering awards. The fact that the creation engine is collaboratively focused – meaning you can compose music for someone else’s game, or create assets for someone else’s movie – is a true evolution of LittleBigPlanet’s concept, and is going to result in an amazing community of talented people.

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And the beta will surely be the “a-ha” moment for players who have yet to quite get to grips with what Media Molecule’s trying to do. LittleBigPlanet’s calculator went viral the moment it was discovered in the release’s beta, and we suspect similar things will happen with Dreams as creators get to grips with what is shaping up to be an impressive engine. Exactly when that will happen is still up in the air, but one thing’s for certain: you should not sleep on Dreams.

Are you anticipating Dreams? Do you agree that the game is getting overlooked a little bit? Why do you think that is? Dream a dream in the comments section below.