Solar Ash

Lore & Background

Solar Ash is an action-adventure platform game developed by Heart Machine and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was released on December 2, 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows, with additional releases on Steam on December 8, 2022, and on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on September 14, 2023. The game's science fiction story explores themes of trauma and moving on from dramatic, devastating life events. It is set in the same fictional universe as Heart Machine's first game, Hyper Light Drifter, but there are no direct connections between the two games' stories.

The player controls the main character Rei (voiced by Fryda Wolff), a Voidrunner within a black hole known as the Ultravoid, through a bright-neon colored, three-dimensional landscape, avoiding obstacles and attacking enemies with energy slashes and a phase-shifted and hard light sword, as Rei tries to save her planet. The game's focus is less about combat and more on movement, as lead developer Alx Preston stated: 'We're traversal first. That was kind of the vision of the game: Control the traversal, the environments that you're moving through, and the spectacle of it all. Especially the scale on the grandiosity of it just feeling impossibly large and you're feeling really tiny and insignificant in as many ways as possible. The traversal absolutely takes precedence and the combat is kind of intermingled with that traversal.'

Development of Solar Ash began after Hyper Light Drifter, with Heart Machine founder Alx Preston feeling that 'we'd done what we wanted to do in 2D' with that game. The move to 3D required scaling the core team from 5 to around 25 people and switching from GameMaker Studio to Unreal Engine 4. The studio relied on Houdini for node-based procedural generation to create the game's large landscapes. The game was first announced as Solar Ash Kingdom in March 2019, and was later rebranded to Solar Ash by June 2020. It was delayed from an October 26, 2021 release date to December 2, 2021, with Heart Machine citing the need for additional polish and bug fixes while navigating the global pandemic.

Reader's Guide

Solar Ash received 'generally favorable' reviews according to Metacritic. Critics unanimously praised the game's atmosphere and feel while criticizing the story delivery and collectible suits. Christian Donlan of Eurogamer praised the game's atmosphere and how personal it felt, writing that 'all these semi-familiar parts are filtered through a deeper set of influences that feel like entirely personal preoccupations.' Marcus Stewart of Game Informer praised the game's gripping and engaging nature, calling it 'a wholly entertaining cosmic romp.' GameSpot praised the game's movement, bosses, puzzles, and levels, while criticizing lore overdose in the narrative. Push Square praised the game but lamented the empty open world and enemies that posed little threat. Chris Moyse of Destructoid gave the game six out of ten, writing about its missed potential, stating that 'Solar Ash offers a collection of promising concepts that don't quite hit realization' due to a disengaging narrative and repetitious gameplay. The game's significance lies in its traversal-first design philosophy and its place as Heart Machine's first 3D title, expanding the universe of Hyper Light Drifter while establishing its own identity.

Did You Know?

• The game's development required Heart Machine to scale its core team from 5 to around 25 people.
• The game was delayed from October 26, 2021 to December 2, 2021 for additional polish and bug fixes.
• The protagonist Rei is voiced by Fryda Wolff.