The Tomorrow Children

The Tomorrow Children is an adventure video game developed by Q-Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.[1] The game was released as an early access title on September 6, 2016 as The Tomorrow Children: Founder's Pack, and was fully released on October 25, 2016, but was shut down by Sony in 2017.[2] Q-Games later purchased the IP and released the game on September 6, 2022 as The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition.[3][4]

The Tomorrow Children
Developer(s)Q-Games[lower-alpha 1]
Publisher(s)Sony Interactive Entertainment (Original)
Q-Games (Phoenix Edition)
Director(s)Dylan Cuthbert
Producer(s)Kazuharu Tanaka
Hiroshi Shiina
Artist(s)Dylan Cuthbert
Composer(s)Joel Corelitz
Platform(s)PlayStation 4
PlayStation 5
Release
  • WW: October 25, 2016
Phoenix Edition
  • NA/EU: September 6, 2022
  • JP: September 7, 2022
Genre(s)Action
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Development

The Tomorrow Children was announced during Gamescom 2014 at Sony's press conference in August 2014.[5]

Engadget has described the game as "a mix of Minecraft-esque collaborative building, social economics and a Soviet Union-themed post-apocalyptic dystopia."[6] The Tomorrow Children runs on a proprietary game engine developed by Q-Games.[7] The game's graphics engine utilizes new technology, aiming to achieve a Pixar-like pre-rendered CGI look with real-time 3D graphics.[1][8] It utilizes the PlayStation 4's Async Compute technology extensively.[7] It features new lighting techniques developed by Q-Games, such as cascaded voxel cone ray tracing, which simulates lighting in real-time and uses more realistic reflections rather than screen space reflections.[8] This allows real-time global illumination,[7] without any need for pre-calculated or pre-baked lighting.[1][9] It supports direct and indirect illumination in real-time,[7] and up to three bounces of light per pixel from all directions (compared to one bounce for Pixar films).[8] It also features deformable landscapes, with layered depth cubes, representing the world as volumes, which are then converted to polygons as needed.[8]

A public beta test occurred from June 3–6, 2016.[10]

Audio

Voice casting and dialogue work was completed by Glen Gathard and team at Shepperton studios.[11]

Discontinuation and relaunch

On July 6, 2017, six months after its launch, it was announced the game would cease operations on November 1, 2017.[12] The game was discontinued due to the inability to properly monetise the game, in addition to the cost of running the servers.[13] In the years following its shutdown, Cuthbert noticed that players were continuing to share screenshots and videos from the game.[13]

On November 9, 2021, Q-Games announced that they had acquired the IP to The Tomorrow Children from Sony Interactive Entertainment and intended to "rebuild" and relaunch the game at a later date.[14] This was an unprecedented move, as SIE had previously expressed disapproval towards the idea of selling their IPs.[15]

The game was re-released in 2022 as The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition. Its dependence on a central server and microtransactions were removed in order to ensure it would remain playable offline.[16] The new release is no longer free-to-play.[17]

Reception

The Tomorrow Children received mixed or average reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Since its discontinuation, The Tomorrow Children has been recognised as being ahead of its time due to its art style, graphics and lighting.[18]

Notes
  1. Additional work by Japan Studio for the original version.

References
  1. Dutton, Fred (September 16, 2015). "The Tomorrow Children – Delving deeper into Dylan Cuthbert's weird, wonderful PS4 exclusive". PlayStation Blog. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  2. "Play The Tomorrow Children For Free Starting Today". PlayStation.Blog. 2016-10-25. Archived from the original on 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2022-07-07.
  3. "The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition launches September 6". Gematsu. 2022-07-07. Archived from the original on 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2022-07-07.
  4. "The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition Launches September 6". PlayStation.Blog. 2022-07-07. Archived from the original on 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2022-07-07.
  5. Cuthbert, Dylan (12 August 2014). "PS4 Exclusive The Tomorrow Children Announced at Gamescom 2014". PlayStation Blog. Archived from the original on 29 December 2016. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  6. Trew, James. "PlayStation's push for indie games is epitomized by 'The Tomorrow Children'". Engadget. Archived from the original on August 27, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
  7. "The Technology Of The Tomorrow Children" (PDF). Game Developers Conference. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-04-06. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  8. Cuthbert, Dylan (October 24, 2015). "Creating the beautiful, ground-breaking visuals of The Tomorrow Children on PS4". PlayStation Blog. Archived from the original on December 11, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  9. Walton, Mark (August 13, 2014). "PixelJunk Developer Reveals Details of Genre-Bending PS4 Exclusive The Tomorrow Children". GameSpot. Archived from the original on February 5, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  10. "The Tomorrow Children Open Beta Weekend Starts This Friday". June 1, 2016. Archived from the original on June 2, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  11. "The Tomorrow Children | Pinewood Studios". Archived from the original on 2023-02-07. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  12. Japan, Sony Interactive Entertainment. "『The Tomorrow Children(トゥモロー チルドレン) 』サービス終了のお知らせ/End of Service Announcement for The Tomorrow Children | The Tomorrow Children(トゥモロー チルドレン) プレイヤーズインフォメーション | プレイステーション". プレイステーション (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2021-08-28. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  13. "A second chance for the Tomorrow Children". 7 February 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-06-29. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  14. Romano, Sal (9 November 2021). "Q-Games acquires The Tomorrow Children from Sony Interactive Entertainment, rebuilding for re-release". Gematsu. Archived from the original on 11 November 2021. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  15. Arevalo-Downes, Lauren (15 February 2012). "Sony Admits To Dropping The Ball On Demon's Souls". AList. Archived from the original on 11 November 2021. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  16. Romano, Sal (2022-06-08). "The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition launches in 2022 for PS4". Gematsu. Archived from the original on 2022-06-08. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
  17. "The Tomorrow Children are not allowed to play during itsrelaunch - Game News 24". 4 July 2023.
  18. "Sony's 'The Tomorrow Children' Was Ahead of Its Time". 15 September 2020. Archived from the original on 10 August 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  19. "The Tomorrow Children for PlayStation 4 Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2021-10-01. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  20. Butterworth, Scott (6 September 2021). "The Tomorrow Children Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 16 June 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
  21. Smith, Rob (6 September 2021). "The Tomorrow Children Review". IGN. Archived from the original on 3 September 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
  22. "The Tomorrow Children Review (PS4) | Aces high". Push Square. 6 September 2021. Archived from the original on 6 September 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
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