Destruction AllStars is a game about car smashing. It’s there, the first word in the title. It’s also a major milestone for the PS5 – a massive exclusivity that is exclusive to the next-gen console, not a remake, or spanning generations.
It’s a title that will necessarily be used to showcase what kind of game developers can create when given the freedom of the PS5’s new features and firepower. But smashing is still at the heart of it Destruction AllStars: so much so that the seed of the game was a simple idea. “Imagine how amazing we can do damage on PS5,” said John McLaughlin, a senior producer at Sony XDev. The edge.
Considering the studio’s heritage, it was a short leap to partner with Lucid Games for development. Game director Colin Berry had previously worked on Sony’s Wipe out series, while other Lucid members came from other classic car games, such as Metropolis Street Racer, Project Gotham Racing, and MotorStorm. “One thing was for sure: these guys knew cars,” says McLaughlin. “And then we actually went to those guys with that seed and said, ‘We want to do something on PS5, with a lot of destruction and cool stuff – what’s your idea, what’s your pitch?’ ‘
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The Lucid team came back with a different kind of combat car game. As McLaughlin explains, “They came to us, not so much with Destruction AllStars – the name came later – but they came with the pitch of a game with cars, a lot of destruction, [and] encouraged destruction. It wasn’t about hiding from destruction, it was about breaking and jerking as quickly as possible, and so on. “
The other goal was to raise the bar for a destruction derby style game. While older games cheat on showing damage or debris, hiding behind texture swaps or low-resolution polygons, Destruction AllStars tries to provide a better experience, according to Berry. “As for the PlayStation 5 and what we were told early on about the specs, that we can look at distortion and damage and the physics in a way that we haven’t done before, and at a level that we haven’t done before. So the crumpling of the cars, the number of parts in each car is made up, all these wrecks, we can really push the lock on that kind of thing. ”
That level of detail in the titular destruction is a big part of why Destruction AllStars is limited to the PS5 only – even if a PS4 port would have opened the game to more players, an important aspect in a game that focuses heavily on multiplayer modes. A PS4 version just “wouldn’t have done the same in terms of damage and defamation and physics, actually in the game,” says Berry.
The downside of that exclusivity is of course what happens to it Destruction AllStars The next. As a free PS5 exclusive title offered through PlayStation Plus for the next two months, it’s pretty much guaranteed to have a huge opening audience, much in the same way as previous PS Plus hits like Rocket League or Fall guys have achieved. Rocket League became an internet sensation, with huge esports tournaments still popular even years after its release. Fall guysOn the other hand, it has largely faded into the background, paralyzed by new content trickling too slowly to hold the interest of most players after the first few weeks.
“We have a plan, we have a roadmap, not just for the game’s launch window, but for the first three, four weeks later, for a few months later, for the next year,” said McLaughlin, with new characters, new game modes and more, all planned for free in the future. ”We have a content schedule plan for the coming year that I think will keep people engaged and engaged and keep them coming back and wondering what they dropped this week, and wonder what they dropped next week. ”
Destruction AllStars is available as free download for PlayStation Plus subscribers to the PlayStation 5 for February and March.