After a seven-year-long wait, Dreams is finally available for PS4. The game from Media Molecule was initially announced at the 2013’s PlayStation Meeting, where the current-gen console was revealed, and now, only a few months before PS5 launches, it manages to get to the market.
The title, coming with a powerful tool that allows you to create games and share them with the community while also playing those from strangers, has been on the market for around ten months in an early access state. It’s been the first case of an early access release for PlayStation 4, and one that has proved to be somewhat successful.
By June, at least 100,000 users took part in the early access version, which was a good result if you consider that slots were limited. Also, “the quality of the community is amazing, which was something we’d really hoped for,” creative director Mark Healey told MCV UK several weeks after the release.
The peculiar control scheme was based initially exclusively on DualShock 4’s gyroscope (the final release allows you to choose among that and a classic analog stick-based system). The strong editor has always sparked curiosity in the PC community, and that affinity could sooner or later prompt Sony and Media Molecule to launch a personal computer version.
Is Dreams coming to PC?
Healey has discussed the chances of a PC version for Dreams in an interview with VGC, claiming that the game is not currently in development for that specific platform. However, any decision on the matter would be up to Sony to take, and that opens a whole lot of possibilities for the future.
“I think that would be cool,” he said. “I mean obviously Sony have an opinion about that but yeah, I think, I don’t know where it’s going to go in the future, I mean it would be great to see that.” He added that it would be “great” for that to happen, but also that there’s nothing in motion for that purpose.
“That’s not something that’s happening right now,” the creative director continued, “but I think a lot of that depends on where the games industry goes in general, I suppose. I mean I think Sony have become more open recently to publishing stuff on the PC in general anyway, haven’t they? Isn’t there some stuff that’s happening, I’m not sure?”
Indeed, something’s changing, at least according to the latest reports. Sony is said to be more open in regards to the PC platform to increment its exclusive games’ userbase. The move is reflecting on multi-platform titles like Predator: Hunting Grounds and reportedly older games such as Horizon: Zero Dawn to be carried over PC.
Interestingly, in the aftermath of that report, Eurogamer’s Tom Phillips also shared that he knew something about Dreams possibly coming to PC shortly after Horizon: Zero Dawn. So, there’s at least a tiny chance that Media Molecule knows something but can’t talk specifically about it now that the game is shipping for PS4 after this long wait.
What about Dreams for PS5?
With PS5 supporting backwards compatibility with PlayStation 4, there’s no doubt that you will be able to play Dreams on your next-generation console as soon as it releases. With this happening by the end of 2020, you can expect to keep running your current Dreams experience on PlayStation 5 in a few months from now.
Creative director Mark Healey discussed chances to move the development of the game entirely to PS5 in the future, however, and he was quite open talking about that matter with VGC in a recent interview. On that occasion, he said that the team would shift to “whatever [platform] is relevant” in the future.
“Obviously at the moment we’re focused on PS4 and I would actually hope that it extends the life of the PS4 to be honest with you,” Healey remarked, “then maybe when other companies start making games for it, the community will carry on making games for it, but if it’s as successful as we hope it is then it’s an obvious progression.”
“You know, it’s a platform, so ideally in the future we’ll migrate to whatever is relevant,” he mentioned. “That’s probably about as much as I can say without getting smacked by someone,” he added, which also looks like a hint to things to come in a not so distant future.
Interestingly, Sony had shared in the past that it has a 10-year vision for Dreams, which is meant to be a platform for users to go and play a vast selection of community-driven games on top of creating them. Such a long timeframe would, of course, cover PlayStation 5 and perhaps even other platforms.
The change in the vision for PlayStation 5 includes plans for releasing incoming titles on both the next and current-gen consoles instead of going for PS5 exclusives right away. The game’s productions shipped late in PS4’s life cycle could become cross-gen by the time the incoming platform releases this Holiday season.
