Sky is the latest project from thatgamecompany, the minds behind Journey, Flower, and Flow, and following its reveal back in September, the studio is back with the most in-depth look at the game yet. Courtesy of IGN First, we now have a full six-minute gameplay demo, showing off some of the basic moment-to-moment gameplay including movement, puzzles and multiplayer.
Check it out:
As you can see, there are a lot of similarities to Journey, but that is by design. President Jenova Chen explains that fans of the studio's work had reached out after finishing Journey, expressing a desire to be able to play that sort of experience with friends. While Journey did have an online component, it was very minimal, and only grouped you with a random player.
Sky seeks to expand on Journey's design by encouraging people to play with family and friends, which could indicate a sort of local co-op. Around 2:48 in the video, when Chen is explaining the emphasis on cooperation and generosity, he makes a distinction between finding someone to play with whether they are "real life friends and family" or "people you know playing the game at a remote location."
It's hard to know for sure, and there still aren't a whole lot of details to pick out from the trailer, but if establishing a connection with the person you're playing with is a priority, there's no better way to do that than locally.
As of right now, there's no release date announced yet on Sky, but it was said to come sometime this Winter. Now that Sky is the latest focal point of IGN First, it would make sense for a release date to be announced at some point.
