Tron: Catalyst is a Metroid-Hades Hybrid Soaked in Neon

ign.com:

For a small, independent studio, Bithell Games really doesn’t like to be pigeonholed. The studio began life as a one-man band and released its debut puzzler Thomas Was Alone to critical acclaim. In the 12 years since, the studio has grown and experimented, tackling genres like stealth, strategy, point-and-click adventure, and even visual novels. For its next project it’s going even bigger, and Tron: Catalyst is an action-adventure with a scope and ambition far greater than anything the studio has done before.

Of course, it’s not the first time the studio has worked on the Tron franchise and 2023’s Tron: Identity was a fresh spin on the movie series. Tron: Catalyst is set in the same world as Identity and features an all-new story, but it’s the action-focussed gameplay that piqued my interest the most when I recently sat through a 30-minute hands-off demo.

Playing as Exo, a courier who’s been swept up in a conspiracy and is now on the run, Catalyst reminded me a little of Hades. It has a similar 3D isometric viewpoint and the action flows thick and fast. Showcasing the combat was the aim of the demo and, equipped with the infamous Identity disc, Exo fought multiple enemies at the same time. Melee attacks – slamming the disc in the face of the nearest enemy – is the foundation on which combat is built, but the disc can be used as a ranged weapon too, throwing it like a frisbee to target distant enemies. Additionally, the disc can be ricocheted off surfaces and even other enemies, to string together combos, or it can be thrown past a target so it catches them on the rebound, pulling them nearer so you can finish them off with a close-up sucker punch. It’s fast and satisfying, and of course, it’s all drenched in neon so it feels very Tron.

“The goal is to hit all the Tron verbs, to enable players to do everything they would want to do in a Tron movie, and to do them in an interesting way,” explains creative director Mike Bithell. Of course, if you think of Tron you