Rising from the ashes, The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition resurrects one of the most unusual PlayStation exclusives. Released on PS4 in 2016, the original game enjoyed a short life before Sony unceremoniously pulled the plug on its servers and damned all the virtual settlements fans had worked so hard to create.
Despite the standout art style and unique premise of “social action,” there just weren’t enough players toiling for developer Q-Games – of Pixeljunk fame – and Sony to keep the lights on. After the studio claims The Tomorrow Children for itself, the studio takes a second run on the concept, but can this phoenix rise or will it just go up in smoke again?
Trying to explain exactly what The Tomorrow Children is becomes an undertaking in itself. It combines elements of resource gathering, platforming and managing your own settlement, all within the confines of a connected world where you are free to visit and help other players as part of a surreal communist enclave.
Even with a reworked tutorial, the game is relentlessly stupid. Your overarching goal is to gradually expand your city by harvesting resources, crafting new buildings, and increasing its population. There are no missions or stages, the area you play in is constantly evolving as comrades come and go, resource-rich islands that rise and fall from the empty void that surrounds your city’s perimeter.
It’s these islands where most of that real ‘gameplay’ takes place in The Tomorrow Children. Each is its own destructible miniature maze that can be hacked apart and terraformed as you search for wood, coal, gold and other materials, then transport them back to the city to build new landmarks and facilities. You also need to retrieve matryoshka dolls that can be hatched on the base to spawn a new citizen. There have been a number of additions and tweaks, but these basics remain.
Navigating each island requires tools from shovels and pickaxes to jetpacks, controlled vehicles and the new grappling hook. The problem here is that items have a finite number of uses before they expire or need to be recharged. There’s nothing more frustrating than discovering a corner of an island overflowing with resources, only to realize your tools are broken, forcing you to head back to town to buy more. It’s a mundane process that can take ages and you’ll soon hate the stingy amount of inventory space available.
There are plenty of moments like this, where The Tomorrow Children create red tape and restrictions that can hinder both your immediate progress and the gradual growth of your city. Even if you have the right gear, digging the depths of each island as they come and go can be exhausting, not to mention fruitless. It’s just no fun dredging one of these zones completely out of it empty-handed and with no currency to replenish your tools.
As a result, I often found myself in a frustrating place to play The Tomorrow Children. I’d be excited to see what I could eventually unlock in the game, but dreaded the possible hours of chore-like effort required to make any sort of meaningful progress. Although Q-Games has stripped the microtransactions, the specter of a free-to-play economy still looms. It’s not hard to imagine that in 2016 the original game would have more inventory space and many superior real money tools. These time-saving upgrades are still there, but are behind in-game paywalls that grind endlessly and require an element of luck. Freeman Dollars will help lubricate the wheels in just about every part of The Tomorrow Children, though it never explains how to earn them, with a handful of hands here and there.
The amount of boring hustle and bustle this game demands threatens to overshadow those more enticing elements. For starters, the visual style remains completely unique, with players getting a Soviet-infused toy box full of dystopian wonders as workers queue for coupons and commendations, surrounded by an industrialized model village. Then there are the islands: abstract 3D artworks that beg to be pecked with a pickaxe and shoved into oblivion.
Whether or not you stick around depends on your experience with other players. While it’s possible to thrive on your own – new Comrade AI can be found to bolster your city’s ranks, and there’s now an offline mode – you’re supposed to visit other players’ cities and your comrades helps. Whether you’re cutting wood or shooting down an invading Kaiju, there’s plenty of opportunity to work together, although working together can be a tricky, time-consuming endeavor. If you just show up in someone else’s town, chances are you have no idea what to do or how to help, as none of the resources earned are funneled into your own town and thus your own overarching progress.
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