Dreams Wiki – Everything You Need To Know About The Game

Dreams is a sandbox game developed by Media Molecule and published by Sony, to be released exclusively for the PS4. It is centred around the “Play, Create, Share” mechanics that Media Molecule initially pioneered with their side-scrolling platformer series, LittleBigPlanet.

Development

Media Molecule announced back in 2012 that they were currently, at the time, working on two upcoming titles. One of these was the PlayStation Vita game Tearaway, while the other game in development at the studio remained unnamed. At the PlayStation Meeting in 2013, Media Molecule showed an on-stage demo of Dreams, which involved three players using the game’s creation tools on-stage. However, the game was still not officially announced. Media Molecule and Sony released a teaser for the title roughly a year later in July of 2014, but it was only in 2015 at Sony’s E3 press event that Dreams was officially announced.

https://youtu.be/odfYSiTpXpo

Media Molecule initially announced that a beta for Dreams would be launching in 2016, but after the scope of the game’s development expanded beyond the studio’s expectations, they had to delay both, the beta as well as the final launch. Not much was heard of the game from Media Molecule or Sony for some time following that. In December of 2017, at The Game Awards, Sony showcased a trailer for the game, confirming that it would be launching in 2018, however a more specific release date was not given, while the publisher hasn’t followed up on that claim since then either.

Immediately following The Game Awards, Media Molecule confirmed at PlayStation Experience 2017 that plans for a beta had not been scrapped, but had only been postponed, and that a beta was still expected to launch in 2018. However, similar to the claims for the game’s release in 2018, there was no follow-up on any information for the beta for some time after that. At PAX West 2018, however, Media Molecule confirmed, that a beta for the game would still be coming to PS4 in 2018. Media Molecule have re-iterated on multiple occasions that Dreams is a game that will rely on its community and what they do with the game and its creation tools than it will on its development team.

Media Molecule have placed a focus on wanting to enable players to express their creativity in unique ways with Dreams, and to make it as simple as something like sketching. For this reason, they decided to use an impressionistic art style as the visual look of the game, and to have it centre around the concept of dreams, so that players could express their creativity without inhibitions. As such, PlayStation Move support was also enabled for the game, to allow for creation using its more direct motion sensing based input methods. The developers also stated that they want to make it so that the act of watching someone create something using Dreams’ creation tools would be as entertaining as creating something yourself.

Media Molecule have revealed that Dreams has been in development since 2012, but that in the time since then, its entire development process has been rebooted twice, and that the game has been remade entire both times to suit the studio’s vision for it. However, the studio expressed that during this time, publisher Sony had been supportive of their vision for the game and had allowed them a lot of leeway and freedom in terms of delays and experimentation.

Gameplay

Dreams is centred around the “Play, Create, Share” mechanics that Media Molecule used to great effect in their LittleBigPlanet series, promoting and being heavily focused user-generated content, creativity of the community. However, with Dreams, Media Molecule’s attempts are to expand far beyond the scope of the LittleBigPlanet games, by using similar creation tools, but expanding them in scope so as to make the game a hub for creation of anything from games, to movies, to paintings, to music, to sculptures, or anything else.

In Dreams, players play as something called “the imp”, which in terms of mechanics is an on-screen cursor that can be controller by either the PlayStation Move motion controller, or the PS4’s regular DualShock 4 controller. Players can use the imp to interact with objects, enemies, and environments in the game, by either creating new things or by customizing things that are already in existence. Players can physically manipulate objects be grabbing or pushing them, while they can also create new items, objects, or even characters.

Though the focus of Dreams is on user-generated content in a sandbox, the game also features a story driven single player campaign. Media Molecule have stated that the purpose of this campaign is to help users understand and get acclimated to the game’s mechanics and creation tools. Individual levels in campaigns are known as dreams, and dreams are connected to each other through different kinds of gateways, such as doors. Characters that players come across can be possessed by the imp, allowing players to take control of the characters, and these as well as the imp’s own abilities, and the objects players recover and acquire in the game, must then be used to solve puzzles or manipulate other objects in the game’s world.

Players can also change the emotions of the imp by drawing on the DualShock 4’s touchpad. Other aspects of the imp and its appearance are also customizable. Additionally, Dreams will also feature co-op multiplayer, which will allow multiple players to create dreams together in conjunction. Any dreams that players create, whether its solo or through co-op multiplayer, can be shared online with the rest of the world, while players can also download shared dreams and edit them to their own liking.While creating dreams, players can set their own rules for that level. Dreams can be anything from games, game levels, and game cutscenes to animations, music tracks, and paintings. Players can also include gateways to their dreams that will allow anyone who plays through their created level to use the gateway to enter other dreams as well, including dreams made by other players. These gateways can be randomized as well.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.