Shadow of the Beast: "Sony said yes... wow!"

The reveal of the return of Shadow of the Beast twenty-five years after the original release took us by surprise during Gamescom two years ago, but Heavy Spectrum's Matt Birch assured we weren't the only ones:

"The fact Sony said yes to this idea was just... wow, I can't believe it! I already worked with Sony on some mobile games for PlayStation Mobile when they were first looking at that. After we finished those, Sony asked me to go talk with them about games, and while we were having this conversation, they told me 'look, if you could choose anything, what would it be?'"

"And I sort of did a really impromptu... 'Well, there was this game I played when I was 16, and had this really huge influence on me and made me think about the way games trigger your imagination and actually go beyond the screen, like books and movies can leave you thinking about them for days afterwards, and they said that sounded really interesting."

Bringing a twenty-five year-old concept to a modern gaming market can be a tricky process, and Heavy Spectrum seems to be aware of that:

"The original Shadow of the Beast came out 25 years ago, and a lot of players today have never played it or even heard of it. It had to be something that could stand alone now, and modern players could really engage with."

"We want to make sure the combat is something that is very approachable, something that can be easily engaged with, and make sure people can get that experience of Aarbron being a badass that can pop people's heads off, and they can get that really straightforwardly. We also really want to make sure there is a lot more depth to it, for anybody that wants to spend time with it. Some of my favourite games of all time are Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, I love those games, so there's littles nods to the way those games are formed, but it has to be something unique."

Shadow of the Beast will be released exclusively on PlayStation 4, anytime "soon". You can watch the full interview below.