Bring Back Gravity Rush

As Sony’s concerns over profit margins were discussed and rediscussed the web over, there was one mantra that it was hard to escape from. That mantra was BRING BACK GRAVITY RUSH.

I’m with you, Kat fans. That series was the perfect combination of cute and clever. It was like nothing else, and that’s a real shame. There should be more games like it. But there aren’t.

Why? Because they’re not as wildly successful as, say, Spider-Man. You can take a wild punt on a $300m game, and hope you make it to the top of the charts. Hell, release at a sensible time and spend enough in marketing and you stand a better than decent chance. Especially if you’re Sony.

That’s not true for Gravity Rush, which you know will only sell hundreds of thousands of copies. It might break even, but you’re not going to be making hundreds of millions of dollars off it.

We could spend hours analysing why that is. Not enough violence? The wrong kind of vibe? Maybe a toxic distrust of upside down blondes? I don’t know.

In the middle of all of this, a rumour that Gravity Rush 2 is indeed going to be re-released appeared. And not only that, but it’ll be coming to PC too. The insider said that it would be announced in May and released in the summer.

No word on the first, but discussion quickly went that way. Why would you release the second without the first? It’s the kind of logic that would make perfect sense if Sony hadn’t released Uncharted 4 before the PS3 classics. Wishful thinking demands we don’t pay attention to that.

New Times for Gravity Rush

There’s also a film in development. So while we won’t be getting any new adventures for the OG Kat, we will be getting new Gravity Rush releases in the very near future.

I can hear what you’re thinking, as you dust your hands off. There ya go. Sony’s financial woes are sorted. Gravity Rush was brought back, in a manner of speaking, and we can get on with our lives.

Alas, if the re-release rumours prove true and the film isn’t terrible (Uncharted absolutely was), fans will be disappointed by the lack of excitement around a third game. I’d love to be wrong. But the truth is, middle-tier games haven’t been the pull they were in the PS2 era for a long, long time. People have been spoiled with top-of-the-range visuals and set pieces where you push forward on the analogue stick but feel like you’re saving a city. The era of big publishers supporting games that aren’t profitable enough to be worthwhile are done.

Unless this push to re-establish Gravity Rush leads to an AAA game in that universe. It’s possible, and would likely be extremely good fun. Why can’t Sony take the Spider-Man blueprint and make a Gravity Rush game? The thought it intriguing.

But then is it a Gravity Rush game? Take away the cute, add in the increased violence. Try and stop the blonde from being upside down, just in case. What do we have? A more successful but less interesting game.

Ultimately, that isn’t the solution people want it to be. Be careful what you wish for. Personally, I’m just happy to have seen so much discussion around Gravity Rush. It might be gone, but for a dedicated few, it’ll never be forgotten.