Month: February 2008

Assassin's Creed
Genre(s)	Action-adventure Stealth
Developer(s)	Ubisoft Montreal Ubisoft Sofia Ubisoft Blue Byte Ubisoft Quebec Ubisoft Bordeaux Gameloft Griptonite Games Red Storm Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Ubisoft
Creator(s)	Patrice Désilets Jade Raymond Corey May
First release	Assassin's Creed November 13, 2007
Latest release	Assassin's Creed Nexus VR November 16, 2023

Assassin's Creed is a historical action-adventure video game series and media franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Patrice Désilets, Jade Raymond, and Corey May, the Assassin's Creed video game series depicts a fictional millennia-old struggle between the Order of Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, and the Knights Templar, who desire peace through order and control. The series features historical fiction, science fiction, and fictional characters intertwined with real-world historical events and historical figures. In most games, players control a historical Assassin while also playing as an Assassin Initiate or someone caught in the Assassin–Templar conflict in the present-day framing story. Considered a spiritual successor to the Prince of Persia series, Assassin's Creed took inspiration from the novel Alamut by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, based on the historical Hashashin sect of the medieval Middle East.

The first Assassin's Creed game was released in 2007, and the series has featured thirteen main installments in total, the most recent being Assassin's Creed Mirage in 2023. Main games in the Assassin's Creed series are set in an open world and played from the third-person view. Gameplay revolves around combat, stealth, and exploration, including the use of parkour to navigate the environment. The games feature both main and side missions, and some titles also include competitive and cooperative multiplayer game modes.

A new story and occasionally new time periods are introduced in each entry, with the gameplay elements also evolving. There are three overarching story arcs in the series. The first five main games follow Desmond Miles, a descendant of several important Assassins throughout history, who uses a machine called the Animus to relive his ancestors' memories and find powerful artifacts called Pieces of Eden in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic event, referencing the 2012 phenomenon. From Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag to Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Assassin initiates and employees of Abstergo (a company used as a front by the modern-day Templars) record genetic memories using the Helix software, helping the Templars and Assassins find new Pieces of Eden in the modern world. The next three games, Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, follow ex-Abstergo employee Layla Hassan on her own quest to save humanity from another disaster.

The main games in the Assassin's Creed franchise have received generally positive reviews for their ambition in visuals, game design, and narratives, with criticism for the yearly release cycle and frequent bugs, as well as the prioritising of role-playing mechanics in later titles. The series has received multiple awards and nominations, including multiple Game of the Year awards. It is commercially successful, selling over 200 million copies as of September 2022^[update], becoming Ubisoft's best-selling franchise and one of the highest selling video game franchises of all time. While main titles are produced for major consoles and desktop platforms, multiple spin-off games have been released for consoles, mobiles, and handheld platforms. A series of art books, encyclopedias, comics, and novels have also been published. A live-action film adaptation of the series, titled Assassin's Creed, was released in 2016.

Development history[edit]

While the games in the series have had several narrative arcs, Ubisoft views the series as currently having three periods of development and design philosophy. Until 2015's Assassin's Creed Syndicate, the franchise was structured around single-player content, and while centering on open world spaces and several role-playing elements, were more action-adventure and stealth-oriented. Period two, covering from Assassin's Creed Origins to Assassin's Creed Mirage, brought in more role-playing elements and live-service features to increase player engagement. Period three will launch with Assassin's Creed Shadows, using lessons from the second period of development to make engrossing single-player games similar to the original titles but with features to allow players to share achievements and content with others, all to be backed by the Infinity hub system.^[1]

Period one[edit]

The first Assassin's Creed game originated out of ideas for a sequel for Ubisoft's video game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, aiming for the seventh generation of video game consoles. The Ubisoft Montreal team decided to take the gameplay from The Sands of Time into an open-world approach, taking advantage of the improved processing power to render larger spaces and crowds. Narratively, the team wanted to move away from the Prince being someone next in line for the throne but to have to work for it; combined with research into secret societies led them to focus on the Order of Assassins, based upon the historical Hashashin sect of Ismaili, who were followers of Shia Islam, heavily borrowing from the novel Alamut.^[2][3] Ubisoft developed a narrative where the player would control an Assassin escorting a non-playable Prince, leading them to call this game Prince of Persia: Assassin,^[4] or Prince of Persia: Assassins.^[5] Ubisoft was apprehensive to a Prince of Persia game without the Prince as the playable character, but this led the marketing division to suggest the name Assassin's Creed, playing off the creed of the Assassins, "nothing is true; everything is permitted". Ubisoft Montreal ran with this in creating a new intellectual property, eliminating the Prince, and basing it around the Assassins and the Knights Templar in the Holy Land during the 12th century. Additionally, in postulating what other assassinations they could account for throughout history, they came onto the idea of genetic memory and created the Animus device and modern storyline elements. This further allowed them to explain certain facets of gameplay, such as accounting for when the player character is killed, similar to The Sands of Time.^[5]

After Assassin's Creed was released in 2007, Ubisoft Montreal said they looked to "rework the global structure" in developing the sequel, Assassin's Creed II. They felt that parkour was underutilized in the first game and designed the world in the sequel to feature freerun highways to make it easier to enter into parkour moves, for example using rooftops to escape pursuits.^[6] The change in setting meant that the game would feature a new cast of characters, including a new protagonist, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Assassin's Creed II also brought in more use of crowds to hide in plain sight that the developers had seen used in Hitman: Blood Money, adding more to the concept of social stealth as a gameplay option.^[6] Finally, Ubisoft Montreal completely reworked the repetitive mission structure from the first game through numerous side activities, collectibles, and secrets. These additions became a central part of the series going forward as well as other Ubisoft games like Watch Dogs, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon.^[6] Assassin's Creed II was followed by two sequels, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations, which also featured Ezio as the main protagonist and introduced the ability for players to recruit NPCs as Assassins and manage them in missions.^[6]

Assassin's Creed III originated from both Ubisoft Montreal, who wanted to progress the series' narrative forward in time, and to an unattached project that had been developed at Ubisoft Singapore and featured naval ship combat. As the main team had settled into the American Revolution period for the game, they found the ship-to-ship combat system fitted with the story and redesigned the setting to incorporate it further. Another major change in Assassin's Creed III was transitioning the parkour and freerun systems to work in the natural woodlands of 18th-century Massachusetts and New York. This further allowed the adding of trees and other vegetation within the city areas themselves, not just as part of the parkour systems, but to add more varied environments, which would continue as part of the series' ongoing design.^[6]

For Assassin's Creed III's sequel, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, the Ubisoft team built upon the foundation of its predecessor, particularly with regards to the naval gameplay, merging it seamlessly with the land-based gameplay.^[6] The team also used the game as a chance to address aspects of the series' storyline. Choosing to focus on an outsider's perspective to the Assassin–Templar conflict, they set the game around the Golden Age of Piracy, with the protagonist, Edward Kenway, starting out as a pirate who initially becomes involved in the conflict with the prospect of wealth. Similarly, after the conclusion of Desmond Miles' story arc in Assassin's Creed III, the modern-day segments put players in the role of a nameless individual controlled from a first-person perspective. The team chose this approach because they believed it allowed players to more easily identify themselves in their character.^[6] This trend would continue in the series until Assassin's Creed Syndicate.^[6]

Development of Assassin's Creed Unity began shortly after the completion of Brotherhood in 2010,^[7] with the core development team splitting off during the early stages of development on Assassin's Creed III.^[8] As the first game in the series to be released exclusively for the eighth generation of video game consoles, Unity featured a graphical and gameplay overhaul. The setting chosen for the game was Paris during the early years of the French Revolution, with players taking control of a new Assassin named Arno Dorian.^[7][8] After Unity, Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed Syndicate in 2015.^[6]

Period two[edit]

After Syndicate, Ubisoft decided that the series needed a major reinvention across both gameplay and narrative. It was decided to make the next game, Assassin's Creed Origins, closer to a role-playing video game than a stealth-action game, which would also bring a game with many more hours of play than previous titles. Some long-standing features of the series were eliminated for this purpose, such as the social stealth mechanic. This changed how missions were presented — rather than being linearly directed through the Animus, the player character could meet various quest givers in the game's world to receive missions.^[6] From the narrative side, Ubisoft placed the game before the formation of the Assassin Brotherhood in Ancient Egypt to make the player character, Bayek of Siwa, a medjay that people would respect and seek the help of.^[6] The modern-day storyline also shifted back to a single character, Layla Hassan. The developers limited the number of playable sequences for her character compared to previous games but gave them more meaning, such as allowing the player to explore Layla's laptop with background information on the game's universe.^[6]

Origins was followed in 2018 by Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which shifted the setting to Classical Greece and followed a similar approach to its predecessor but with more emphasis on the role-playing elements.^[6] 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla, set in Medieval England and Norway during the Viking Age, continued the same style as Origins and Odyssey. The developers recognized feedback from the previous two games and brought back the social stealth elements, as well as the concept of a customizable home base that was first introduced in Assassin's Creed II.^[6]

In 2023, Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed Mirage, a smaller title which sought to pay tribute to the franchise's earlier installments by focusing on stealth and assassinations over its predecessors' role-playing elements. The game started development as an expansion for Valhalla before being turned into a standalone release, and was set in 9th-century Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, a decade before the events of Valhalla, to which it served as a prequel.^[9][10]

Future[edit]

In 2022, Ubisoft announced several additional games for the series. Assassin's Creed Infinity has been described by its executive producer, Marc-Alexis Côté, as a "new design philosophy" for the series,^[1][11] as well as a hub that will provide the releases of future games.^[12] The first two games to be included in Infinity will be Assassin's Creed Shadows, set in Japan during the Sengoku period,^[9] and Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe, rumoured to be set in Central Europe during the 16th century.^[13]

Gameplay[edit]

The Assassin's Creed games are centered around one or more fictional members of the Order of the Assassins. Their memories are experienced by an in-game character in the modern-day period through a device called the Animus and its derivations. The Animus allows the user to explore these memories passed down via genetics. Within the context of the game, this provides a diegetic interface to the real-world player of the game, showing them elements like health bars, a mini-map, and target objectives as if presented by the Animus. Additionally, should the player cause the historical character to die or fail a mission, this is rectified as desynchronization of the genetic memory, allowing the player to try the mission again. Through the Animus interface, the player can retry any past mission already completed; for example, in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the player achieves better synchronization results by performing the mission in a specific manner, such as by only killing the mission's target. The Animus also imparts special abilities to the modern-day character that helps them to see their target in a crowd or other unique points of interest.^[14][15]

While playing as the Assassin characters, the games are generally presented from a third-person view in an open world environment, focusing on stealth and parkour. The games use a mission structure to follow the main story, assigning the player to complete an assassination of public figureheads or a covert mission. Alternatively, several side missions are available, such as mapping out the expansive cities from a high perch followed by performing a leap of faith into a haystack below, collecting treasures hidden across the cities, exploring ruins for relics, building a brotherhood of assassins to perform other tasks, or funding the rebuilding of a city through purchasing and upgrading of shops and other features. At times, the player is in direct control of the modern-day character who, by nature of the Animus use, has learned Assassin techniques through the bleeding effect, as well as their genetic ability of Eagle Vision, which separates friend, foe, and assassination targets by illuminating people in different colors.^[16][17]

The games use the concept of active versus passive moves, with active moves, such as running, climbing the sides of buildings, or jumping between rooftops, more likely to alert the attention of nearby guards. When the guards become alerted, the player must either fight them or break their line of sight and locate a hiding place, such as a haystack or a well, and wait until the guards' alert is reduced. The combat system allows for a number of unique weapons, armor, and moves, including the use of a hidden blade set in a bracer on the Assassin's arm, which can be used to perform surreptitious assassinations.^[18]

Storyline[edit]

Premise[edit]

The Assassin's Creed games primarily revolve around the rivalry and conflict between two ancient secret societies: the Order of Assassins, who represent freedom, and the Knights Templar, who represent order. Versions of these societies have existed for centuries, with the Assassins seeking to stop the Templars from gaining control of Pieces of Eden, artifacts that can override free will to control people.^[19]

These artifacts are remnants of an ancient species pre-dating humanity called the Isu, or Precursors, which created humanity to live in peace alongside them. The Isu ensured humans could not rise against them by creating the Pieces of Eden to control them. When the first hybrid Isu-human beings emerged, named Adam and Eve, they were immune to the effects of the Pieces of Eden. They stole the Pieces of Eden, which led to a great war that ended when a massive solar flare devastated the surface of the Earth. The Isu began to die out while humanity thrived. Three Isu—Minerva, Juno, and Jupiter—attempted to prepare humanity for a solar flare they knew would come centuries later. Minerva and Jupiter prepared vaults from which humanity could activate a protective shield around Earth with the Pieces of Eden and the Eye, a means to communicate how to find and use these vaults; however, Juno saw humanity as a threat and attempted to sabotage Minerva and Jupiter's plan. Minerva and Jupiter were forced to destroy Juno, unaware she had hidden her consciousness to wake upon activation of the Eye. All that remained of the Isu were the traces of their memories in the world's mythologies, and religions, while the Pieces of Eden were lost to time.^[19]

The series takes place in the modern era, in which the Templars have established the mega-corporation Abstergo Industries. Abstergo has developed a device, the Animus, whose user can relive the memories of their ancestors through their genetic material. Abstergo has kidnapped people who are descendants of past Assassins to locate the missing Pieces of Eden via the Animus.^[19] A user of the Animus can move about in simulated memories as their ancestor, but performing actions outside the bounds of what their ancestor did can lead to desynchronization of the memory.^[14][15] Extended use of the Animus creates a bleeding effect that gives users some of the skills and capabilities they experienced with their ancestor.^[20]

Story arcs[edit]

The first five main games in the series focus on Desmond Miles, a bartender who learns he is a descendant of several important Assassins throughout history, including Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad from the Middle East during the Third Crusade; Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the Italian Renaissance during the late 15th and early 16th centuries; and Ratonhnhaké:ton (better known as Connor), a half-Mohawk, half-British Assassin during the American Revolution. Desmond is used by Abstergo to find Pieces of Eden but is freed by Lucy Stillman, an undercover agent for the Assassins. Lucy takes Desmond to meet Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane, two other members of the modern-day Assassins. The group is joined later by William Miles, Desmond's father. They continue to explore Desmond's memories and eventually discover the Eye and Minerva's warning of another possible solar flare. They also inadvertently free Juno, who then kills Lucy, revealed to be a double agent for the Templars. The group continues to find the vaults across the globe via Desmond's memories, and Desmond ultimately activates them in time to block the solar flare, at the cost of his own life.^[19]

Starting with Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, William goes into exile, while Shaun and Rebecca continue to monitor Abstergo by posing as employees of one of their spin-off companies, Abstergo Entertainment. Abstergo has refined the Animus technology to allow anyone to experience genetic memories from the DNA material of another person, allowing Abstergo to continue their search for the Pieces of Eden under the guise of creating entertainment products. In Black Flag, the player assumes the role of an unnamed Abstergo employee tasked with scanning the memories of Edward Kenway, a privateer-turned-pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy and Connor's grandfather. During their investigation, the player is blackmailed into helping a fellow employee, John Standish, recover sensitive information and deliver it to the Assassins. John is later revealed to be a Sage, a human reincarnation of Juno's husband Aita, who is trying to resurrect her, though he is killed by Abstergo before his plan can come to fruition.^[19] In Assassin's Creed Rogue, the player controls another Abstergo employee who is recruited by the Templars to clean their servers after the Assassins breach them and recover data on the life of Shay Patrick Cormac, an Assassin-turned-Templar from the 18th century. The Assassins are ultimately forced to go underground once more, and the player character is invited to join the Templars.^[19]

By the time of Assassin's Creed Unity, Abstergo distributes its Animus product via a video game console named Helix, tapping into an extensive, unaware player base to help them locate more Pieces of Eden and determine the fates of various Sages as part of the Phoenix Project, an attempt to recreate the genetic structure of the Isu. The game's opening has players control an unnamed Templar during the downfall of the Templar Order, while the different "time anomalies" take them to Paris during the Belle Époque, World War II, and the Hundred Years' War. The Assassins locate select players and bring them in as Initiates to help their cause. In Unity, the player character is contacted by an Assassin named Bishop and asked to experience the memories of Arno Dorian, an Assassin active during the French Revolution, so that the modern-day Assassins can locate the body of a Sage and hide it from Abstergo.^[19] Despite the Assassins' efforts, Abstergo collects enough samples of other Sages by the start of Assassin's Creed Syndicate to move forward with the Phoenix Project. Again, Bishop contacts the Initiate and asks them to explore the memories of Jacob and Evie Frye, twin Assassins from Victorian England, to locate a Piece of Eden known as the Shroud, which Abstergo needs to complete the process of recreating the Isu genetic structure. Although the Initiate manages to locate the Shroud, the Templars beat the Assassins to it.^[19]

A new storyline is introduced in Assassin's Creed Origins focusing on Abstergo researcher Layla Hassan. Initially tasked with locating historical artifacts in Egypt, Layla stumbles upon the mummified corpses of the medjay Bayek and his wife Aya, co-founders of the Hidden Ones, the precursor organizati

LittleBigPlanet
Genre(s)	Platform, endless running
Developer(s)	Media Molecule (2008-2014) SCE Studio Cambridge (2009) Supermassive Games (2010) XDev (2010-2012) Double Eleven (2012) Tarsier Studios (2012) United Front Games (2012) San Diego Studio (2012) Firesprite (2014) Sumo Digital (2014-2020) Exient Entertainment (2023)
Publisher(s)	Sony Interactive Entertainment PlayStation Mobile (2014)
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3 PlayStation Portable PlayStation Vita PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows
First release	LittleBigPlanet 27 October 2008
Latest release	Ultimate Sackboy March 3, 2023

LittleBigPlanet (LBP - stylised as LittleBIGPlanet) is a puzzle platform video game series created and produced by British developer Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Most games in the series put a strong emphasis on user-generated content and are based on the series' tagline "Play, Create, Share". The tagline represents the three core elements of the series: playing alone or with others locally (on the same console) or online, creating new content using the in-game creation tools, and sharing creations and discoveries online with other players.

Tarsier Studios, Fireproof Games and Supermassive Games also contribute to the development of the PlayStation 3 games, creating in-game assets (downloadable content) including costumes, backgrounds, objects, and stickers. Some of these assets will also provide the player more tools and gadgets to use in the level editor.^[1]

The series comprises six games across five gaming platforms. The series was launched in 2008 with the PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, which was followed in 2009 by a PlayStation Portable version of the same name, initially developed by Studio Liverpool^[2] and later handed to SCE Studio Cambridge. The sequel to the PlayStation 3 version, LittleBigPlanet 2, was released in January 2011 alongside a smaller spin-off title called Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves. LittleBigPlanet PS Vita was developed by Tarsier Studios and Double Eleven, released in September 2012 for the PlayStation Vita. At E3 2014, Sony announced LittleBigPlanet 3, a PlayStation 4 instalment that was developed by Sumo Digital and released in November 2014.^[3] The games are all published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The latest instalment for the LittleBigPlanet franchise titled Sackboy: A Big Adventure was revealed during the PS5 live event and released on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in November 2020. A Windows version was released on 27 October 2022.^[4]

On 17 January 2015, it was announced that all LittleBigPlanet servers in Japan would shut down on 31 July, along with the PlayStation Portable version and LittleBigPlanet Karting in late August in all regions. Due to attacks on the online servers, all LittleBigPlanet servers were taken down in May 2021 (the Vita version had remained closed since March).^[5] The servers for the PS4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 were brought back up on 13 September 2021, however, in the same announcement, it mentioned that the servers for LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet PS Vita and the PS3 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 will remain closed permanently.^[6] On 8 January, 2024, it was announced that, presumably due to more attacks on the online servers, the servers for the PS4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 were being temporarily closed while they investigate them.^[7][8][9]

On 19 April 2024, the servers for the PlayStation 4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 were permanently shut down due to ongoing technical issues.^[10]

Gameplay[edit]

The core mechanics of the series revolve around its tagline, "Play, Create, Share".^[11]

Play[edit]

In the first two instalments of the series, gameplay consist primarily of traditional two-dimensional look in a three-dimensional style platforming like jumping and avoiding obstacles to successfully navigate to the end of a level to win.^[12] Since LittleBigPlanet 2, the series has included mini-games, including ones that do not follow the platformer genre. Most LittleBigPlanet games involve a player playing solo or co-operatively with friends to navigate through a level whilst collecting various "bubbles" along the way, which can take the form of either points or collectibles. In-game collectibles can be used in level creation or to customize Sackboy, the player character. There are also numerous co-operative parts of levels whereby certain prize bubbles can be earned. In LittleBigPlanet 3 and Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Collectables are also present, being used in various shops to purchase more costumes.

Create[edit]

The Create component primarily refers to level creation in the game, along with other features like character customisation. Players can create their own levels with the built-in level creator. Many items that are collected while playing through the story mode and from LittleBigPlanet's community can be used to help with level creation.^[13] These levels can remain as the original LittleBigPlanet platforming gameplay, or they can include other game types, such as racing, fighting, shooting and sports.^[12] The player can also make non-gaming creations such as music and films (commonly known in-game as cut-scenes).^[14] In LittleBigPlanet 2, Sackbots were introduced to give players more control over non-player characters in their levels as well as make the levels in their entirety more intelligent. The creation technique introduced on the game gave the possibility for logic, and it gave the ability to build sets of machines and complex contraptions.^[14]

Share[edit]

Lastly, the Share component relates to sharing creations with the game's community by uploading levels to the PlayStation Network. To-date there were an excess of ten million user-created levels available to play on the LittleBigPlanet server in the PlayStation 3 games.^[15] After the release of LittleBigPlanet 2 and the LBP.me community website, the Share component also had a strong emphasis sharing discoveries. Players were encouraged to share levels they found with other players by writing reviews and comments in-game and by sharing links to creations' LBP.me pages via social networks.

Overview[edit]

The series takes place in a world known as LittleBigPlanet. Each curator is in charge of a part of LittleBigPlanet and they govern them independently. LittleBigPlanet has geography inspired by the real-life Earth. All games in the series follow the main protagonist Sackboy, a small anthropomorphic creature made of brown fabric with a zip fastener and button eyes. He can be customized to the player's liking using costumes that are either unlocked in the game or bought as downloadable content from the PlayStation Store. The player can control Sackboy's four emotions; happiness, sadness, worry and anger, each of which has three levels of intensity. The English language version of each game is narrated by Stephen Fry and in all formats Fry's scripts are written by Dean Wilkinson.

Games[edit]

Main series[edit]

LittleBigPlanet[edit]

The first game in the series was released on the PlayStation 3 platform in 2008 and was the first title developed by Media Molecule, under the name The Next Big Thing. The player controls Sackboy as he travels around the titular LittleBigPlanet, helping the eight creator curators of LittleBigPlanet with their problems in their own respective realms. Throughout the story, Sackboy tries to stop The Collector, one of the eight creator curators who has gone rogue, kidnapping the creations of LittleBigPlanet.^[16] The game received widespread acclaim for its design, gameplay, and customization afforded to the player, particularly the built-in level editor. After its release, it received numerous industry awards.^[17]

LittleBigPlanet 2[edit]

The second game in the series is a direct sequel to the first LittleBigPlanet and was developed by Media Molecule for the PlayStation 3 for a release in 2011. The sequel saw a major shift in the direction of the series, going from a primarily traditional platform game in the first two entries to a more varied style of gameplay called a "platform for games". The second game gave players a wider variety of options when it came to level design, which saw the creation of levels other than platforming such as racing, puzzles, and fighting games.^[18] Following the events of the first two entries in the series, the game takes place when an antagonist known as the Negativitron invades LittleBigPlanet and begins to suck up all its inhabitants. Sackboy must team up with a secret organization known as "The Alliance", led by Larry Da Vinci, to save LittleBigPlanet from the Negativitron.^[19] The game also supported the PlayStation Move, with an update post-launch.

LittleBigPlanet 3[edit]

LittleBigPlanet 3 is a game for the PlayStation 3^[20][21][22] and PlayStation 4. Announced at E3 2014, it was developed by Sumo Digital and was released in November 2014. In the game, Sackboy is transported to another world, Bunkum, where he has to awaken its three missing heroes, OddSock, Toggle and Swoop, who are new playable characters. Sackboy travels through different worlds in order to free the 3 new characters and stop Newton.^[23]

Handheld[edit]

LittleBigPlanet (PlayStation Portable)[edit]

A portable entry of the series was developed primarily by SCE Studio Cambridge in association with Media Molecule for the PlayStation Portable. The game, released in 2009, shared the same name as the original game; however, it was not a port of the PlayStation 3 game, but rather a new entry in the series. It has a story-mode with levels and features many of the same mechanics of its PlayStation 3 counterpart, such as customizations, albeit without the multiplayer component of the game. The game takes place after the events of the PlayStation 3 version of LittleBigPlanet, in which The Collector has been defeated. A carnival is being held and Sackboy decides to go around the world to invite the eight curators of LittleBigPlanet to the carnival whilst finding materials for his own carnival float.^[24]

LittleBigPlanet PS Vita[edit]

The fourth game in the series was developed by Tarsier Studios, Double Eleven, and XDev for the PlayStation Vita handheld and had a 2012 release.^[25] The game features the same core mechanics from LittleBigPlanet 2, with the focus being on a "platform for games" rather than a platformer like previous entries in the series before LittleBigPlanet 2. The game utilizes the unique controls of the PlayStation Vita by using its multi-touch touchscreen and its rear touchpad to navigate through various obstacles in stages as well as for level creation by users.^[26] The game supports cross-buy of DLC costume packs between LittleBigPlanet 2, as well as LittleBigPlanet Karting.

Spinoff games[edit]

LittleBigPlanet Karting[edit]

LittleBigPlanet Karting is a kart racing game developed by United Front and San Diego Studio in conjunction with series creator Media Molecule for the PlayStation 3.^[27] In its story mode, the player ventures through worlds including: LittleBigPlanet, Monster Islands, Victoria's Laboratory, The Progress Emporium, Eve's Asylum, The Space Bass, and Hoard, Sweet Hoard, to put an end to the Hoard racers, who snatch many pieces of the different planets to stash them in the Garage at the End of the Universe. Sony Entertainment America shut down the North American LittleBigPlanet Karting online servers on 31 August 2016.^[28]

Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves[edit]

The game was developed by XDev as a spin-off from the LittleBigPlanet series utilizing the PlayStation Move on the PlayStation 3. It was released in December 2010, as a downloadable title from the PlayStation Store and was later bundled with LittleBigPlanet 2. The game was described as a "demo" and featured 10 prehistoric inspired story levels. In the game, Sackboy must save Little Big Planet from the T-Rex. Unlike the main games, which can be played as a single-player experience, the game required a minimum of two players to work.^[29] This was due to the main mechanics of the spin-off whereby one player would control Sackboy traditionally using the gamepad for platforming while a second player had to use a PlayStation Move similar to a pointer to move obstacles and objects out of the way in order to successfully navigate a level.^[30]

Run Sackboy! Run![edit]

Run Sackboy! Run! is a free-to-play endless running game developed by Firesprite and published by PlayStation Mobile that was released on iOS on 30 October 2014,^[31] Android on 17 December 2014^[32] and PlayStation Vita on 31 March 2015.^[33] The game has no real plot, except for Sackboy running through Craftworld from the Negativitron. The game awarded players with exclusive costumes for LittleBigPlanet 3 (which was released at a similar time) by reaching point goals and collecting stickers.^[34]

LittleBigPlanet Hub[edit]

LittleBigPlanet Hub is an unreleased free-to-play game for the PlayStation 3.^[35] It was planned to be a downloadable title from the PlayStation Store which would have allowed players to create levels and play a curated selection of community levels from LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2 as well as 16 levels from the games' story modes. LittleBigPlanet Hub would also have contained weekly challenges, not found in other LittleBigPlanet games. Downloadable content purchased in other games were to be compatible with LittleBigPlanet Hub, and users were rumoured to be also able to access additional content from the PlayStation Store.^{[citation needed]}

Since its announcement in August 2013, no further details about LittleBigPlanet Hub were revealed.^[36] In February 2024, a beta tester posted a video showing gameplay from a beta build onto YouTube, and shortly afterwards, with assistance, dumped it online for download. This makes the build playable through unofficial means, such as emulations like RPCS3 or PlayStation 3 homebrew.^[37]

Sackboy: A Big Adventure[edit]

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a 2020 platform game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 4. It was announced at the PlayStation 5 reveal event on June 11, 2020, and was released on November 12, 2020; a version for Windows was released on October 27, 2022, marking the series's first release on PCs. Unlike previous LittleBigPlanet entries with 2.5D platforming, A Big Adventure features a range of perspectives and 3D movement.

Ultimate Sackboy[edit]

Ultimate Sackboy is a free-to-play endless running game developed by Exient Entertainment and released on mobile on 21 February 2023. It is the first LittleBigPlanet game to feature limited-time paid subscriptions known as "Marathons." In contrast to Run Sackboy! Run!, it adopts the style from Sackboy: A Big Adventure and is played in 3D.

Reception[edit]

Most of the games in the series have been well received by critics with the LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable gaining Metacritic scores of 95/100^[38] and 87/100^[39] respectively. LittleBigPlanet 2 garnered nearly as much acclaim as the first game, with an average score of 91/100.^[48] LittleBigPlanet PS Vita also received very positive reviews and was the highest-ranked PS Vita game at the time of its release with an average score of 88/100.^[49] However, the release of LittleBigPlanet 3 did not receive critical acclaim, garnering a mostly positive average of 79/100.^[50] Critically, LittleBigPlanet Karting is the worst-performing major game in the series so far but still gained a "mixed or average" Metacritic score of 74/100.^[51] However, the mobile game Run Sackboy! Run! performed worse, with a Metacritic score of 65/100.^[52] Additionally, the character of Sackboy is often seen as a PlayStation mascot.^[53] In 2011, readers of Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition voted Sackboy as the 50th-top video game character of all time.^[54]

References[edit]