PS5 exclusive AllStars Destruction is the next generation of car crashes

AllStars Destruction is a car destruction game. That’s right there, the first word of the title. It’s also a major milestone for the PS5 – a huge exclusive only on the next-gen console that isn’t a remake or spans multiple generations.

It’s a title that, out of necessity, will be used to showcase the kind of games developers can create when free from the new features and firepower of the PS5. But breaking is still the heart of AllStars Destruction: so much so that the seed of the game was a simple idea. “Imagine how much damage we can do on PS5,” says John McLaughlin, senior producer at Sony XDev. The edge.

It was a short jump from there to partnering with Lucid Games for development, given the studio’s legacy. Game director Colin Berry had previously worked on Sony Annihilate series, while other members of Lucid came from other classic car games, like Metropolis Street Racer, Gotham Racing Project, and MotorStorm. “One thing was for sure was that these guys knew about cars,” McLaughlin says. “And then we went over to these guys with that seed and we were like ‘We want to do something on PS5, with a lot of destruction and cool stuff – what’s your idea, what’s your pitch?’”

Team Lucid has returned with a different kind of battle car game. As McLaughlin explains, “They came to us, not so much with AllStars Destruction – the name came later – but they came up with the pitch of a game that featured cars, had tons of destruction, [and] encouraged destruction. It wasn’t about hiding from destruction, it was about breaking and undoing as fast as possible, and so on.

The other goal was to raise the bar for a derby style game of destruction. While older games cheated by showing damage or debris, hiding behind texture permutations or low-resolution polygons, AllStars Destruction tries to provide a better experience, according to Berry. “Regarding the PlayStation 5 and what we were told at the start of the specs, that we might consider doing warping, damage and physics in a way we’ve never done before, and at a level we had never done before. . So the crumpling of the cars, the amount of parts in each car is made up, all this wreckage, we can really push the bolt on that stuff.

This level of detail in the destruction of the holder is a big part of why AllStars Destruction is limited to the PS5 alone – even when a PS4 port would have opened the game up to more players, a key element in a game heavily focused on multiplayer modes. A PS4 version “just wouldn’t have done the same in terms of damage, slander, and physics, actually in-game,” Berry says.

The flip side of this exclusive, of course, is what happens to AllStars Destruction Following. As a free PS5-exclusive title offered through PlayStation Plus for the next two months, it will be virtually guaranteed a huge opening audience, much like previous PS Plus hits like Rocket league or Fall guys have achieved. Rocket league has become an internet sensation, with massive esports tournaments still popular even years after their release. Fall guys, on the other hand, went largely to the background, hampered by new content that flowed too slowly to keep most players interested after the first few weeks.

“We’ve got a plan, we’ve got a roadmap, not just for the … game launch window, but for the first three, four weeks down the line, for a few months, for next year,” Says McLaughlin, with new characters, new game modes and more, all planned for free in the future. “We have a plan on a content schedule for the coming year that I think is going to keep people entertained and engaged and keep them coming back and wondering what they’re dropping off this week, and wondering what. that they will then abandon the week. ”

AllStars Destruction is available in free download for playstation plus subscribers on PlayStation 5 for the months of February and March.