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Dreams

The would-be PS4 sleeper hit that never fully awoke to its potential

By Luke Kemp

Standing on the stage at the PlayStation 4 launch event, Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans delivered the pitch for the studio’s next game: “What we wanted to do was let you record your dreams”. He went on to explain – or at least attempt to explain – what that meant, and how the developer of LittleBigPlanet would achieve it. The vision for Dreams, however, remained unclear. It would be several more years before it was released, indicating that perhaps Media Molecule wasn’t entirely sure what it was making when it revealed the game. But if things were strained from the start, maybe it’s because Dreams, as a project, was too big for PS4. Media Molecule’s intentions were admirable, its audience was enthusiastic, and there was the opportunity to foster a dedicated community. And yet, for the seven years between its announcement and its eventual launch, the messaging surrounding Dreams – the pitch about what this thing actually was – remained muddled.

Dreams was released in February of 2020. By then, PlayStation Move, which was initially presented as integral to the experience, allowing you to ‘draw’ intuitively with the software’s creation tools, was almost a decade old, and developers and players alike had largely lost interest in the motion-based addon hardware first released for PS3. PS Move compatibility was present in Dreams as promised, but, reflecting how the ground had shifted since 2013, it was now optional. One of the unique attributes of the vision had already been sidelined.

At launch, Media Molecule also faced an immense challenge when it came to onboarding would-be creators. One solution it settled on, alongside Twitch streams exploring creation and a selection of guides on the indreams.me website, was a suite of interactive tutorials. Players interested in creating, say, a platformer or a sidescrolling shooter would play through a basic example, and then play again, stopping now and then to be taught how to place items and use building mechanics. It remains an effective approach to this day, but also a time-consuming one that demands patience – a far cry from the promise of quick and easy creation made in 2013.