Annapurna Interactive, the award-winning publisher behind What Remains of Edith Finch, Outer Wilds, and Kentucky Route Zero, has announced a slight delay for one of its upcoming games. Solar Ash, the next game from Hyper Light Drifter studio Heart Machine, has been postponed a little over a month and will now be out on Dec. 2 instead of Oct. 26. It will be available for PlayStation and PC via the Epic Games Store (so, not GOG or Steam).
Annapurna Interactive describes the game as a “third-person action platformer filled with sunken cities, vast water shelves, dangerous lava zones and more.” Your player character protagonist is “a Voidrunner named Rei,” inadvertently and tangentially reminding me of the post-post-apocalyptic setting and characters in the new game Sable.
We are delaying release of #SolarAsh until December 2, 2021. Full statement here: pic.twitter.com/cfPS5SkbMa
— Heart Machine Official (@HeartMachineHQ) October 13, 2021
While the delay of the release may seem like bad news, players should take heart that the game’s creators will have more time to optimally execute their vision. This means less chance of crunch, and a more polished release date product.
The dark psychedelic visuals and towering baddies of this “surreal, vivid, and highly stylized world” are beautifully enticing. The game looks like a fun challenge, with an art and sound style reminiscent of dreamscapes, nightmares, the desolate, and the beautiful. A combat sequence in the gameplay trailer reminds one just a bit of Shadow of the Colossus with a skating-based movement style that has just a shade of Jet Set Radio. My title-dropping aside, the game’s Ultravoid setting looks unique indeed, somehow both bleak and bright.
You can watch the showcase trailer here and the Gameplay Trailer below: