The platformer/shoot ‘em up hybrid Velocity 2X, which launched in 2014 for PS4 and PS Vita as a PS Plus game (before eventually making its way over to other systems like the Xbox One and PC) will be launching on the Nintendo Switch at last, as previously announced. The Switch version of the game will launch next week.

The Switch version is being described as “the ultimate version” of the game, with 1080p and 60fps confirmed for docked mode, and 720p and 60fps for handheld mode.

“This is the ultimate version of Velocity 2X,” said FuturLab Managing Director, James Marsden. “On Nintendo Switch, players will get the complete, no-compromise home console/PC version with all the graphical bells and whistles, whether playing at home on their TV at 1080p and 60fps, or on the Switch screen at 720p and 60fps.”

Velocity 2X was one of the best games of 2014, that managed to fly under the radar because of the stigma associated with digital only games back then (in spite of it being made available to a lot of people via the PS Plus availability). It deftly mixes multiple gameplay styles, and delivers the kind of arcade gaming experience combined with a home console style grand science fiction adventure that is rarely seen these days. If you haven’t already played it, consider the Switch version, when it launches on September 20.

The indie hits just keep coming for the Nintendo Switch. Curve Digital has announced that it will be releasing FuturLab’s Velocity 2X and Perfectly Paranormal’s Manual Samuel for the platform in August.

Manual Samuel is a game about a trust-fundee, Samuel, who deals with Death to have another shot at living after a car accident. However, Samuel has to prove that he can manage the most basic tasks on his own. That includes walking, drinking water and even blinking.

Product Manager Jakub “Koobs” Klitenik stated, “Manual Samuel is such a humorous game, and the Switch’s portability makes it easier than ever to share its hilarious mishaps with friends. Clumsily controlling Sam with a friend is a riot, there’s nothing on the Switch quite like it!” Though not very highly rated on other platforms, Manual Samuel has a “Very Positive” rating among the user reviews on Steam.

Velocity 2X is definitely the more interesting deal, combining shoot ’em up action with speed-running, 2D side-scrolling and puzzle-solving somewhat akin to Metroid. First released in 2014 for the PS4 and PS Vita, it’s also been ported to PC and Xbox One. DLC packs like Dual Core and Critical Urgency add even more levels to play while Daily Challenges provide exclusive maps with leaderboards. It remains to be seen if the DLC packs will be sold separately or packaged with the Switch version.

About Velocity 2X, Product Manager Cédrine Décoret stated, “As big fans of both arcade shmups and action-platformers, Velocity 2X has always held a special place in our hearts. Playing it on the Switch’s pristine, handheld screen, it feels better than ever.”

What are your thoughts on these games finally coming to Switch? Let us know in the comments.

GamingBolt spoke to FuturLab’s managing director James Marsden and technical director Hussain Sheikh about porting Velocity 2X to other platforms and outlined a few things that can be expected. As it stands, there may or may not be some disappointment as far as some things are concerned (*cough*co-op*cough*) but there’s still plenty to look forward to.

"We’re in this for the long haul, creating quality, building credibility. That’s a hard task for an indie, so when Sierra got in touch to ask if we’d like to partner with them, it made a lot of sense."

Rashid K. Sayed: Several months ago, you told us about how Sony fosters talent, which is what prompted you to opt for the PS4 and PS Vita at launch. What motivated you to bring Velocity 2X to Xbox One and other platforms in 2015?

James Marsden: We hadn’t considered taking Velocity 2X to Xbox One or PC until Sierra got in touch at the launch of Velocity 2X on PS4/Vita. We worked with Sony because they believed in our vision – in taking a risk with us. Their belief in our vision paid off for both of us.

We’re in this for the long haul, creating quality, building credibility. That’s a hard task for an indie, so when Sierra got in touch to ask if we’d like to partner with them, it made a lot of sense. We have a shared goal of seeing Velocity 2X enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Rashid K. Sayed: What are your thoughts on Microsoft’s indie policy lately, especially given the so-called changes to their parity clause?

James Marsden: Honestly we haven’t paid much attention to it. Part of the benefit of working with a publisher is that we no longer have to focus on anything but the game. We deliver to Sierra, and they handle the correspondence with Microsoft.

Rashid K. Sayed: The reception to Velocity 2X has been quite good, earning awards for its design, gameplay and visual design. What are your thoughts on this and how is it motivated you to improve on the base experience?

James Marsden: We’re delighted with the response to Velocity 2X of course, and we won’t be doing anything to the base experience because it doesn’t need it. We don’t fix what ain’t broke. We’re focused on creating faithful ports on PC and Xbox One, and on creating another great new game.

Rashid K. Sayed: What changes will Velocity 2X see on the Xbox One, PC, Linux and Mac OS X in terms of gameplay improvements?

James Marsden: Velocity 2X on PC and Xbox One will be a faithful port of the PS4 version, with Keyboard + Mouse support on PC.

"We have no plans for co-op at this time. Of course, once the game is released, if it’s wildly successful then we can take a look at whether it makes sense to develop further."

Rashid K. Sayed: Will the PC version see a significant boost to the visuals or different graphical options?

Hussain Sheikh: PS Vita was our lead platform, and from a visual point of view we achieved everything we set out to do. It’s important to acknowledge that the art style in our game is the result of an artist’s quality of line and choice of colour, not polygon count. Whilst a platform needs a certain amount of processing power to achieve all the lovely post-processing effects in Velocity 2X, turning the dial up on more processing power means nothing – the art is beautifully consistent.

Rashid K. Sayed: Will there be any additional content for Velocity 2X in time for the release of the Xbox One version? Have there been any discussions for adding new challenges or levels to the game at some point?

James Marsden: Velocity 2X for Xbox One and Steam will have our Critical Urgency and Dual Core DLC packs bundled with the game. In addition it will have an exciting daily challenge feature as part of the Daily Sprint Pack.

Rashid K. Sayed: Thus far we’re also wondering about the addition of co-op to Velocity 2X. Will that be happening at any point in the future?

James Marsden: We have no plans for co-op at this time. Of course, once the game is released, if it’s wildly successful then we can take a look at whether it makes sense to develop further.

Rashid K. Sayed: If not split-screen or co-op play, can we look forward to some kind of online competitive play in Velocity 2X for the future?

James Marsden: The new daily challenge feature will allow players to challenge their friends to a speed running competition with a different remix level daily utilizing leaderboards for the competitive play.

"A brand new game! The idea is thrilling, the gameplay is delightful, and the art is off the charts stylish in my opinion. It represents everything FuturLab stands for in the games industry."

Rashid K. Sayed: The Metroidvania approach has fared you well for both Velocity and Velocity 2X. Will you be following the same gameplay model for future releases?

James Marsden: We deliver quality, irrespective of genre. As a studio we chase the idea that excites us the most. Surge Deluxe is another example of an innovative design executed to a very high standard (one of the five top rated Vita titles in 2014), and that’s a completely different genre. You can expect that we will continue to learn as much as we can about what players enjoy, and build on our experience each time.

Rashid K. Sayed: What’s next for the studio after bringing Velocity 2X out for other platforms?

James Marsden: A brand new game! The idea is thrilling, the gameplay is delightful, and the art is off the charts stylish in my opinion. It represents everything FuturLab stands for in the games industry. I’m very excited about it!

Rashid K. Sayed: How difficult was it to bring Velocity 2X to the Xbox One? Did the Xbox One’s eSRAM pose any technical issues?

Hussain Sheikh: As we mentioned before, PS Vita was our lead platform. It was certainly a challenge to get it running at 60fps on Vita, but that meant that most of the frame rate related challenges were already resolved. Hence the port to Xbox One was smooth sailing in terms of the frame rate and we didn’t have to do anything particularly interesting with eSRAM.

"We are extremely excited at the prospect of having our game in hands of a wider audience. We have taken every care to preserve the core experience on the new platforms and are confident that the title will win people’s hearts again."

Rashid K. Sayed: The game is confirmed to be running at 1080p at 60fps on the Xbox One. What kind of challenges did you guys come across when aiming for that standard, compared to say, the PS4?

Hussain Sheikh: See above.

Rashid K. Sayed: In our last interview for the PS4 version of the game, you spoke in great length about the PS4’s GPU. What is your take on X1 GPU and how does it tackle up against its competitor?

Hussain Sheikh: We believe that both PS4 and Xbox One are beasts of machines. Both GPUs boast computational speed in excess of 1.3 Teraflops. That is a lot of computational power and we believe that once the developers start utilising the machines to their maximum capacity, the battle will not be won through graphics, but actual gameplay and content.

Rashid K. Sayed: Are you using the extra processing power offered by the Xbox One CPU? [Microsoft recently released the 7^th core for the developers in its latest SDK update]

Hussain Sheikh: Not at the moment.

Rashid K. Sayed: Is there anything else you want to tell us?

Hussain Sheikh: We are extremely excited at the prospect of having our game in hands of a wider audience. We have taken every care to preserve the core experience on the new platforms and are confident that the title will win people’s hearts again.

Much has been said about the hardware differences between the PS4 and Xbox One. At this point, it’s fairly public knowledge that one is a bit powerful than the other, but given that Microsoft is working on optimizing the Xbox One’s GPU, how does it tackle up against its competitor?

GamingBolt recently spoke to Hussain Sheikh, Technical Director at FuturLab about his opinion on the differences between the GPUs in the two consoles. FuturLab has previously worked on the PS4 version of Velocity 2X and are currently working on the Xbox One version of the same game. Given that they have gone hands on both consoles, what is their take on the two consoles?

“We believe that both PS4 and Xbox One are beasts of machines,” Hussain  said to GamingBolt. “Both GPUs boast computational speed in excess of 1.3 Teraflops. That is a lot of computational power and we believe that once the developers start utilising the machines to their maximum capacity, the battle will not be won through graphics, but actual gameplay and content.”

That last statement from Hussain makes a ton of sense. In the end, all that matters are the games, and both consoles have some great titles coming up. These include Uncharted 4, Rise of the Tomb Raider and the ever expanding library of 3rd party games.

What is your take on this article? Let us know in the comments section below.

FutureLabs’ excellent shooter/sidescroller, Velocity 2X, was one of the surprise hits of last year when it hit PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita; since it was a headlining title for PS+, and because Sony had invested so heavily in the game’s promotion, many had assumed that it would be remaining exclusive to PlayStation platforms for the foreseeable future. However, that assumption turns out to have been wrong, since the game, it has been announced, will be coming to Xbox One and PC this Summer.

The game will be hitting these platforms courtesy of the newly reborn Sierra; the Xbox One and PC versions will, according to Sierra, be the definitive versions of the game, since they will include all the DLC that has been released so far in the base package, in addition to also having exclusive daily challenges, to make the game’s leaderboards even more compelling.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage and information.

Serving as a sequel to the two preceding popular Velocity titles, Velocity and Velocity Ultra. The game was developed for the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita and it was released on September 2nd 2014.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 2. Characters

Development

The development cycle of Velocity 2X was very understated, with nothing of any particular note actually taking place. The game was designed to feature five separate environments that would feature a total of 50 individual stages further supplemented by twenty five bonus stages.

The game was largely well received upon its early September 2014 release with media critics and gamers alike praising the game for it’s constant yet well scaling difficulty levels and bright, science fiction themed art style.

The game currently sits at 90/100 on Metacritic with an average user score of 7.9. Polygon.com and GameSpot.com scored the game 9/10 across both the PS Vita and PlayStation 4 builds. Our own Alex Jackson scored the game 7/10, saying that the “Story is bad enough that you’ll tune it out”.

Story

The story of our protagonist is partly explained to the player by way of a series of flashback stages that help recap the events that have transpired and how Lt. Kai Tana came to be thrown across the galaxy and ultimately tells us how she came to be augmented by her various cybernetics. Lt. Kai Tana must break free from the clutches of the Vokh Empire with the aid of her follow inmate Hjun Ralan III, a Jintindan slave.

Gameplay

Gameplay is the main aspect of Velocity 2X given its scrolling, fast paced action. Players are quickly reintroduced to the LT’s teleporting jet, the Quarp. Gameplay in the jet primarily takes place on a vertically scrolling plane but with the twist of moving sideways lateraly via the ships integrated teleportation mechanic.

Gameplay on land however, when the player takes control of Kai Tana, the game takes on a decidedly metroid-esque action platformer feel that feels right at home in the games science fiction world. Kai Tana’s abilities to dart around and phase through certain walls introduces a mechanic that allows both combat manoeuvres and evasive dodges. This “Teledash” can also be used to some extent as an attack. Vokh guards come at Kai Tana with shielding that can be depleted by Teledashing through them, thus opening them up to attack.

When the player acquires the telepod, that can be thrown, the telepod takes on a new dimension as a means of movement and combat accessory.

Characters

The Quarp – While not exactly a character, the Quarp is its own gameplay entity completely separate the land based portions. The Quarp is Lt Kai Tana’s transportation and fighter jet.

Lt Kai Tana – Kai Tana is the games primary protagonist and is a skilled combatant. She also pilots the teleporting fighter jet, the Quarp.

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

Velocity 2X opens slowly, introducing its plot and elements very slowly via flashbacks and brief dialog scenes before levels. We begin with Kal, a lone woman stranded in alien space and being brought back from the brink of death through technology after her experimental spacecraft  malfunctions while investigating a black hole.

"Thankfully, the plot takes a back seat in Velocity 2X Ultra and ignoring it isn't detrimental to your enjoyment."

Kal is enhanced by the tech attempting to repair her, giving her amazing abilities that slowly unlock through stages, such as short range teleportation and releasing pulses of energy from her hand. She is helped along by a friendly alien, whose race has been subjugated for millennia by another race.

Her escape and attempts to get home create the core of the plot, though its frankly not very interesting to follow. Nothing outside of standard scifi occurs here at best, and reads like high school creative writing from a disinterested student at worst. The borderline bad story is framed by some rather basic art that could have used a lot more polish to come off as better than the average student learning to use Adobe Flash.

While the ugly art sticks around like an unwelcome house guest, thankfully, the plot takes a back seat in Velocity 2X Ultra and ignoring it isn’t detrimental to your enjoyment. Gameplay is split between on foot and in ship, each with more or less the same goals and you’ll almost always do both several times within the course of a stage.

"Since everything is happening in real time as your teleporting instead of taking a page from something like The Swapper by slowing down, it does limit creative use in the occasional combat situation."

Shipboard segments involve a heavily SHMUP inspired trip through the confines of a space station, though to call it a shmup is difficult. Combat is sparse at best, and the most threatening thing you’ll come across is the random turrets dotted through later levels. The focus is on how fast you can navigate your ship around your surroundings while activating sequential switches and gathering items, rather than circumventing bullets. The twist on it comes in the teleportation mechanic, where you can dissipate and reappear anywhere on the screen with simple directional input.

It’s an awkward mechanic to get the hang of, though it does click and is very satisfying to master. Since everything is happening in real time as your teleporting instead of taking a page from something like The Swapper by slowing down, it does limit creative use in the occasional combat situation and demands breaking pace to position yourself as carefully as demanded.

"Metroid is a comparison thrown around Velocity a lot, but as these sections are completely linear and there are no power ups, it isn’t very apt."

New to this particular update to the title. Levels will demand that you dock at least once in a stage to find a hidden switch within in order to progress. These on foot portions control slightly differently from the ship segments, demanding an obvious shift in style that isn’t completely unwelcome. It breaks up the action pleasantly and gets you thinking in a different mindset.

Goals remain largely the same within these corridors, asking you to manoeuvre around your environment using a short range “tele-dash” and your eight direction repulser hand blast. Combat becomes a lot more engaging in these sections about halfway through the game, though ends up almost as infrequent as space bound excursions.

Metroid is a comparison thrown around Velocity a lot, but as these sections are completely linear and there are no power ups, it isn’t very apt. Advancing through levels and reaching story segments is what gives Kal her new toys , but they either end up being inferior to your standard equipment at best, or completely stop the otherwise excellent pace at worst.

"The stop and aim nature they demand runs contradictory to the expectations of maintaining your forward momentum that the game has set up to that point."

About the middle point of the game, both sections get introduced to further forms of teleporting. The ship portion mainly uses it for backtracking at suggested or improvised locations, but the on foot segment is much more involved. The “Tele-pods” function in a fashion similar to a piece of Stealth Inc. DLC, or to be more universal, vaguely like Portals.

While interesting in concept and vastly more versatile than the shipboard equivalent, the stop and aim nature they demand runs contradictory to the expectations of maintaining your forward momentum that the game has set up to that point. Its another area where more thoughtful level design and a leaf from The Swapper might have resulted in a mechanic that didn’t seem to be counterintuitive to what the rest of the game is telling you.

Both divergent styles really only share a nitpick in the lack of feedback when hit by enemy fire, making it hard to keep track of health. Stages consist on a back and forth between the two styles, rapidly switching and never lasting long enough to drag on. It’s easy to kill minutes or lose hours to the sub five minute levels of Velocity. The game is cross buy and cross save compatible, and the mission design works in heavy favour of this, though it disappointingly works on a manual basis alone. If you don’t upload and download when you’re in range of a network, you’ll either be out of luck or replaying stages.

"It’s really a toss up between whatever is available to you at the moment that decides what you’ll want to play on."

The Vita version loses nothing in transition to the portable format outside of less reliable leaderboard access for obvious reasons. Presentation is identical in all facets, and the controls remain intuitive enough for the most demanding trench run. The unique hardware of the Vita allows the ship to teleport at a single tap of the finger, but trying to do this for all but hopping side to side is simply inefficient. It’s really a toss up between whatever is available to you at the moment that decides what you’ll want to play on

Velocity 2X Ultra’s main concern and probably greatest strength lays in its scoring system. Each mission gets graded at the end and you get marked on time, collectables and general score within each stage. Leaderboard between friends or the world are constantly updated and the short levels are conducive to repeated, burst play. It all comes together like a well crafted meal to create a very addictive scoreboard chase, and if that’s something you and your friends can get into Velocity will serve you very well.

"Velocity 2X Ultra is a wild ride for a single player and addictive second-shaving for a group of leaderboard chasers."

Through deciding to approach the SHMUP genre at a radically different angle, Velocity does score attack in a very intriguing way. There are clear areas where the design or presentation could have taken cues from other contemporaries, but at the end of the day Velocity 2X Ultra is a wild ride for a single player and addictive second-shaving for a group of leaderboard chasers. While i would hope to see it grow into the potential I see here with future iterations, It’s hard not to recommend Velocity 2X Ultra.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Velocity 2X is a crazy looking, hectic and frenetic (and therefore awesome looking) side scrolling shooter game that will be launching on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita next month, on September 2. The game features some crazy action, including 360• shooting, gigantic bosses (that can even be destroyed by you flying your ship inside them and then taking them out inside out), and a kickass soundtrack.

The game is due out on both PS4 and PS Vita, and it will be Cross-Buy (meaning if you buy it on one system, you automatically get it on the other system) and Cross-Save (meaning assuming you have access to both systems, your progress on one version carries over to the other version, and vice versa).

‘We’re confident you’ll find that every aspect of Velocity 2X – including the art, visual effects, mechanics, controls, audio and user interface – has been refined many times to create a well-rounded and incredibly fun experience that can be enjoyed by anyone,’ the developer said on the PlayStation Blog.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage.

To answer that and many more questions, we got in touch with FuturLab managing director James Marsden and technical director Hussain Sheikh. Everything you’ve wanted to know about the game, including its new side-scrolling mechanics, utilization of the PS4’s technology, Remote Play support and much more have been addressed.

Rashid Sayed: After the popularity of Velocity and Velocity Ultra, what were your plans for Velocity 2X? How did you plan to further up the ante in terms of action?

James Marsden: Velocity and Velocity Ultra were created with a very small team and limited resources. Looking back, it doesn’t represent what our studio is capable of now. With Velocity 2X we are creating a very well rounded experience. Every aspect has been significantly upgraded and in some cases overhauled. We threw out the old code and started again from scratch with next gen in mind. Everything else has been upgraded, from the controls and physics system to the visuals, UI, camera, music & audio. Velocity 2X even has a more robust storyline. It’s a leap forward in production value and quality across the board. In terms of upping the ante for action, you’ve seen the video right?

It’s wall to wall explosions in there =)

Rashid Sayed: Though primarily a top down shooter, Velocity 2X introduces new 2D side-scrolling segments in which players can dock their ships and dash through levels. What served as the main inspiration and incentive to ultimately explore levels on foot?

James Marsden: We wanted to scale the game and the team, and we wanted to do it in a sensible way. We knew the mechanics worked wonders for the top down shooter, so it was simply a case of knowing the mechanics would work for a side scrolling platformer too. When we explained to Sony that it would mean effectively doubling the variety of gameplay, they were sold on it.

"Velocity 2X will of course also be available as a standalone PS Vita digital download at the same time as the PS4 version. They will be cross-buy so players will get both versions for one price."

Rashid Sayed: In this age of big budget action games, Velocity 2X is a relatively simpler throwback to the glory days of gaming. Given that many indie titles try to implement some unique hook, what will Velocity 2X’s hook be?

James Marsden: Velocity’s hook will always be teleportation at speed. Everything else is there to support the thrilling feeling a player gets by rushing through a level with absolute control.

Rashid Sayed: How difficult was it to bring Velocity 2X to the PlayStation 4?

James Marsden: As I mentioned our engine was developed with PS4 in mind, so it’s been relatively straightforward.

Rashid Sayed: Will Velocity 2X also be available on the PS Vita via Remote Play? Also, do you plan to use any other unique features of the PS4, including the DualShock 4’s touchpad?

James Marsden: Yes, most games support Remote Play as part of Sony’s Technical Requirements Checklist (TRC). Velocity 2X will of course also be available as a standalone PS Vita digital download at the same time as the PS4 version. They will be cross-buy so players will get both versions for one price. You can use the DS4 touch pad to fling telepods on foot. The same functionality is supplied by the touch screen on PS Vita.

Rashid Sayed: The game is confirmed to be running at 1080p at 60fps on the PlayStation 4. What kind of challenges you guys came across when aiming for that standard?

James Marsden: We’re not getting anywhere near the ceiling on PS4, so we can throw as many particles, lights and explosions at is as the artists want and PS4 just obeys!

"We are definitely pushing Vita to its limit (and have spent a great deal of time optimising our engine) with all the post-processing, dynamic lights, multiple layers of parallax and particle effects, but with PS4 we are barely scratching the surface."

Rashid Sayed: Do you mean to say that you did not faced any challenges achieving 60fps and 1080p?

James Marsden:  That’s correct. No problems whatsoever.The engine was created by Andy Yelland, who has 20 years experience working on AAA game projects. He’s normally a trouble shooter, meaning that he gets hired by the big guys to solve problems they either can’t solve or don’t have time to solve. He’s like a one man A-Team. He created the engine for Velocity 2X for PS Vita and PS4, so from that side of things we were in good hands. The same engine was used for Surge Deluxe on PS Vita.

Rashid Sayed: How many hours of gameplay will Velocity 2X offer? What with its top down shooter origins, will you be using the PS4’s sharing functions so that players can compare high scores and progress?

James Marsden: That’s hard for us to say right now because the game isn’t finished, but we’re aiming for more content than Velocity Ultra, and that was about 20 hours for those that aimed to get Perfect Triple Stripe Gold Medals on all zones.

Rashid Sayed: Velocity 2X is utilising a lot of new techniques for bloom, lighting etc. How are you guys using the PS4 GPGPU functionality to achieve this?

Hussain Sheikh: In all honesty most of the techniques used for Velocity 2X are pretty much industry standard now (bloom, lens flares, vignetting, colour correction etc), but the power of the GPU and available memory meant that we can do these effects on a much higher resolution than before and not have to worry about performance. We have also increased the number of dynamic lights and switched to pixel lighting rather than vertex lighting being used on Vita, which gives the lighting a smoother appearance when displayed on a large TV.

In terms of effects, the number of particles on screen have been quadrupled without it having any effect on frame rate. I guess the main challenge for us was to get the visual fidelity of the game on Vita on par with some of the AAA titles. We are definitely pushing Vita to its limit (and have spent a great deal of time optimising our engine) with all the post-processing, dynamic lights, multiple layers of parallax and particle effects, but with PS4 we are barely scratching the surface.

"We’re aiming for 50 campaign levels plus bonus missions. The PS4 and PS Vita versions will be identical, yes."

Rashid Sayed: Are there any visual differences between the PS4 and PS VITA versions? 

Hussain Sheikh: There are very minor differences that are the artist’s call. You can pack more particles per square inch of screen on the PS4 because the screen is larger so it doesn’t look cluttered, whereas the PS Vita screen would feel cluttered, especially when playing at high speed.

Rashid Sayed: How many levels will the final version have? Will the PS4 and PS Vita versions be identical in content?

James Marsden: We’re aiming for 50 campaign levels plus bonus missions. The PS4 and PS Vita versions will be identical, yes.

Rashid Sayed: What kind of benefits do you think the unified memory architecture bought to the development of Velocity 2X or for that matter game’s development in general?

Hussain Sheikh: For Velocity 2X, we have used Vita as our lead platform. Which means that porting the game to PS4 was a trivial task in terms of game performance. We have increased visual fidelity all across the board (textures, lighting, post-processing) but we didn’t have to do anything special on PS4 to take advantage of the unified memory architecture. In general terms memory is the slowest component of modern hardware. Most people talk about CPU/GPU speed, but what they forget is that transfer rate of data is generally the biggest culprit for causing frame drops. If the computation units are starved of data or have to wait for output to be written back into memory, that becomes a major bottleneck.

Having a unified high speed memory architecture alleviates this bottleneck where the data doesn’t need to be constantly transferred between CPU and GPU, but can be accessed by both. It also means that developers no longer need to worry about running out of the memory pool between CPU and GPU or waste effort on memory load balance. It just makes things so much simpler.

"We did have some great ideas for co-op and multiplayer, but ultimately were out of scope for Velocity 2X. Perhaps for DLC or a subsequent game could be possible."

Rashid Sayed: It’s no secret that the PlayStation 4 has a slower clock speed compared to modern processors out there. What are your thoughts on the percentage of frametime for each operation that it is capable of and did it gave rise to any challenges?

Hussain Sheikh: We are not sure that it really matters at this stage. Both PS4 and Xbox One have 8 cores; that is a lot of computational power.  We doubt if there are any games out there that are actually utilising these cores to their maximum strength. But yes it will be interesting to see in future how games use these power houses to create great experiences.

Rashid Sayed: Will there be any multiplayer or co-op elements in Velocity 2X?

James Marsden: We did have some great ideas for co-op and multiplayer, but ultimately were out of scope for Velocity 2X. Perhaps for DLC or a subsequent game could be possible.

Rashid Sayed: What can you tell us about the main character’s skill set and the various enemies in the game?

James Marsden: Lt. Kai-Luan Anaplian Tana is the sole pilot of the Quarp Jet, a spacecraft capable of teleportation. Whilst being protected travelling through a wormhole at the end of the first game, Kai’s physiology was altered to become somewhat cybernetic, enabling super human speed, strength and agility, including the ability to fall any distance and not feel pain. The most important addition is the ability to teleport short distances through obstacles on foot. This is enabled by a Quarp Drive Satellite embedded in her shoulder. Kai also has a number of personal telepods that she can throw to parts of the environment that are hard to reach on foot, enabling her to teleport to wherever a telepod comes to rest. Kai can also teleport instantly between telepods she has dropped using the ship and those dropped by hand on foot.

Rashid Sayed: Do you have a release date set for the game?

James Marsden: Not yet, no, there’s still lots to do!

Rashid Sayed: You have primarily released games only for the PlayStation platforms. What is it about PlayStation that you don’t find on other platforms, say the Xbox One?

James Marsden: Sony fosters talent in a way that you don’t see anywhere else in the industry. The result is that PlayStation invests in videogames as a medium, and that’s why we’ve chosen to work with them.

When it comes to the PlayStation 4, almost every aspect of its hardware has been dissected and analysed since launch. When the PS4 was announced, architect Mark Cerny was confident that the benefits of the console will arise only after a few years though, especially thanks to the general purpose computing on graphic process unit or GPGPU.

What does that say for the hear-and-now though? Why, that developers will be able to achieve powerful effects like bloom, lens flares, colour correction and much more at a higher resolution, like FuturLab is doing for Velocity 2X.

On being asked about all the new techniques used for bloom and lighting, and whether FuturLab was taking advantage of the PS4’s GPGPU for the same, technical director Hussain Sheikh said, “In all honesty most of the techniques used for Velocity 2X are pretty much industry standard now (bloom, lens flares, vignetting, colour correction etc), but the power of the GPU and available memory meant that we can do these effects on a much higher resolution than before and not have to worry about performance. We have also increased the number of dynamic lights and switched to pixel lighting rather than vertex lighting being used on Vita, which gives the lighting a smoother appearance when displayed on a large TV.”

“In terms of effects, the number of particles on screen have been quadrupled without it having any effect on frame rate. I guess the main challenge for us was to get the visual fidelity of the game on Vita on par with some of the AAA titles. We are definitely pushing vita to its limit (and have spent a great deal of time optimising our engine) with all the post-processing, dynamic lights, multiple layers of parallax and particle effects, but with PS4 we are barely scratching the surface.”

Velocity 2X doesn’t have a set release date but the PS4 is clearly just getting started. Stay tuned for more news and details in the coming days.