PlayStation Reveals New Moss: Book 2 Features, Details

PlayStation committed to another wave of indie showcases this week with Moss: Book II leading the charge on Thursday. The second game in the virtual reality series that started with the original Moss for PlayStation VR was featured in a new post on the PlayStation Blog that detailed a couple of features and details developer Polyarc has put in the game to further immerse players. Moss: Book II still does not yet have a release date, but it's scheduled to be released at some point during Spring 2022.

Moss: Book II once again stars Quill, the mouse who explores a world much larger than the critter while players help her navigate the environment and all its obstacles and dangers. To further connect players with the protagonist, Polyarc said it's been "chaining existing gameplay logic and animations together" to create a more immersive experience between cinematics and player-controlled moments.

"Quill's personality, expressive movements, and interactions with us make her the real star of the game, so we made sure there were even more moments to deepen our bond with our pint-sized companion," said Mike Felice, the engineering director at Polyarc. "This means more cinematics, interactions, reactions, and character-based storytelling to color the world and further strengthen our relationship with her."

For those who played the original game and wished they could revisit past moments to explore things at their own pace, Polyarc said it's heard those concerns and has built Moss: Book II's world accordingly. The developer said it's made it so that players can go back to areas in the game to explore them further or to search for more collectibles this time around.

Honing in on the VR element of the game that makes it so appealing to those interested, Polyarc also said it created a new system called "Boopables" to better help players feel like they're part of the experience alongside Quill.

"Controllers vibrate when possessing enemies, blocks glow as we get near them, and Quill looks at us and reacts to our gestures and touch," Felice said. "But to get that true sense of immersion, we focused on the subtleties that could take us out of the experience by designing a system called Boopables that gives our virtual bodies a physical presence that impacts the virtual world around us. Similar to real life, grass and ferns move when we brush our hands through them, candle flames flicker as we move past them, and water ripples when we touch it."

Moss: Book II is due out during Spring 2022, so expect to see more features and details discussed between now and its release.