Q.U.B.E. 2 puzzle-platforming into 2018
A pretty cubeworld
Cubes: they're everywhere these days. Ever since Minecraft invented cubes, haven't you noticed those swollen squares popping up all over? They're obvious in many Minecraft-y video games but, if you press your face against your screen, you'll see that every game is made of little ones. And it's not just games. Cut a slice of Battenberg cake and that's cubes. Heck, look out your window and realise buildings are basically cubes. It's mighty sinister. Still, I must concede that the cubes of Q.U.B.E. 2 [official site] have made a pretty world. Developers Toxic Games today announced the first-person puzzle-platformer sequel will come in 2018, and shared a little look at it:
The first Q.U.B.E. was fun enough, a puzzle-platformer with technogloves to move and manipulate the cubic menances. Bbut the puzzling was never truly satisfying and Adam noted in his Wot I Think that he wished for more character or story:
"I suppose I'm distracted by the bits and pieces that allude to a scenario and find them unfulfilling. Preferably, all puzzle games would greet me with narrative interludes but there are times when colours and shapes are nothing more than colours and shapes. They don't have to be. Q.U.B.E. is a game about colours and shapes, not about laboratories and gizmos. It's also a fairly good game about colours and shapes that doesn't run its ideas into the ground but also offers very little reason to revisit."
Update: Oh! I'm informed that Q.U.B.E. did later add a story with its Director's Cut update. Ta, gang.
As the trailer hints, Q.U.B.E. 2 is whacking in a story. It stars Amelia Cross, a British archaeologist who awakes to find herself in this cubehell. It sounds like puzzling is being expanded too.
"With Q.U.B.E 2 we want to give the player more story but we also want to give them more choice," Toxic managing director Dan Da Rocha said in today's announcement. "We've developed the tools players can use to solve puzzles, subverting the linearity of the original in favour of something more open, something that allows players to put their own stamp on solutions."
Hmm! Q.U.B.E. 2 is coming to Windows and Mac some time in "early 2018".