The next Tron game is a sequel to Tron: Identity, but it’s also something entirely new. While Tron: Identity was a visual novel, Tron: Catalyst is an isometric action game with a looping narrative coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch in 2025. Tron: Catalyst is in development at Bithell Games. , the award-winning studio behind Tron: Identity, John Wick: The Hex and Thomas Was Alone.
In Tron: Catalyst, players return to Arq Grid, a virtual world that has evolved without human intervention, creating a siled Galapagos Island-like space inhabited by sentient computer programs. The main characters are Exo. This program allows you to relive segments of time by exploiting system-level glitches that no one else can detect. She is on a mission to uncover and thwart the sinister intentions of the Ark Grid’s rulers, sniffing out secrets and bypassing her enemies with each new loop.
Combat involves melee and ranged attacks, and exos collect data shards that grant them new abilities as the game progresses. Exo’s Identity Disc is an important tool in the fight to stabilize Arq Grid, and one of the things players will do with it is customize their upgrade paths.
“As you play, all combat flows from an identity disc, but you can upgrade that disc to meet the type of action you want,” Bithell Games founder Mike Bithell said in an interview. I did. Media preview for Tron: Catalyst. He performed a disc kick. This was a long-range move where the exo kicked the disc (appropriately) back at the enemies surrounding her, in between a melee slice and a regular throw. In addition to parkour traversal, players can also ride lightcycles.
Tron: Catalyst is completely understandable even if you haven’t played Identity, but anyone who played the first installment will encounter some familiar faces and locations. The new game is a story-driven experience, where player choices have a small but noticeable impact on the world around them. In the game, voice actors appear for the main characters and important scenes.
Bissell games
“We have a text-based interaction system here,” Bissell said. “It can be linear in a sense, and players can also make dialogue choices. The game is very simple in its action, so there isn’t a huge amount of branching, but it allows for some expressiveness. So the player can decide whether he wants to be sarcastic towards people or be polite towards people, for example, choose whether he wants to lie or not lie to this character. You can make some choices, and you’ll see the repercussions. Express that in your character interactions.”
In the demo, Exo was on a mission to edit his own ID disk. In the first loop, she fought her way through enemy stages to access the club and talk to the appropriate character, who then sent her on an escort mission. To prove her worth. She completed it, erased the disk, and restarted the loop. The second time, she didn’t have to fight anyone because her ID disk was scanned clean. From that point on, the city opened up to exos in new ways.
Bissell games
Tron: Catalyst is not an open-world game, but it is made up of what Bissell calls “large levels.”
He added: “Maybe we need to come up with a better terminology.”
Essentially, Tron: Catalyst consists of multiple large hubs that take players from city streets to rooftop penthouses, offering many points of interest even after multiple loops. As players explore, they’ll be able to add shortcut codes to Exo’s discs, taking some of the tedium out of playthroughs.
“If you’re traveling somewhere, you might take a taxi to your hotel, but once you’ve settled in, you might go to a nearby coffee shop,” Bissell says. “Slowly, in ever-increasing concentric circles, you have a kind of iterative exploration. That’s what we really tried to capture here. So as you’re playing the game, you’re looking at the space and how you use it. knowledge about it is being accumulated.”
Characters in the world of Tron: Catalyst do not shift from cycle to cycle. At the beginning of each loop, everyone returns to their original location and does their original task. Still, Exo’s perception of each situation changes with each loop update, new paths are revealed, and the world reacts according to the edits to her identity disc.
Bissell games
“This is intended to be a game that plays around with those relationships and explores how characters can be influenced and change their minds,” Bissell said. “There’s a lot going on there, but it’s definitely different from Hades. It’s not a 100-loop roguelite. It’s not that kind of game. It’s much more story-driven.”
Bithell Games has a team of around 20 developers working on Tron: Catalyst, published by Big Fan, Devolver Digital’s new hub for licensed indie games. Of course, Disney is also involved. Technically speaking, the official name of the new game is Disney Tron: Catalyst. So don’t worry if it shows up higher in your alphabetical library than you expected after it’s released in 2025.
