It might be Valentine’s Day, but Media Molecule has a different reason to celebrate, thanks to Dreams reaching its first anniversary to give players a way to connect while staying indoors. Over the last year, the developer has already celebrated the Dreams creator community and introduced a number of updates that have added all new levels of depth to the game.
Considering that the entire title is built around letting players sculpt their own characters, environments, and games within Dreams, many of what has been added hasn’t come in the form of new content. In fact, creating new content is the task of players, while Media Molecule gets to focus more on new features to add, as opposed to being forced to provide new adventures and experiences itself.
The last year has seen an impressive amount of content come to Dreams thanks to the players that have been creating models, maps, and adventures since the game was in Early Access. Some range from recreating Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion in VR, to entirely original quests through a player-built world with its own secrets to uncover. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the same development studio behind Little Big Planet would put huge amounts of creativity into players’ hands, but Dreams is almost like having easy access to a game engine.
Of course, not every creation is some fantastical adventure in a far off world, but can be as peaceful as using Dreams for a walk in the park, as player Bad Robo has done. The limits to what Dreams can do almost seems to be more on the player than the game when looking at some of the incredible work that has already been created. Then there are the projects, made by either teams of players or individuals that are still considered WIP and could be releasing over the course of the next year.
The “Blu” update was the final Early Access patch that finished out Dreams‘ story mode, and a few days later the game finally earned its full release on February 14th, 2020. It’s an intriguingly unique story for a PlayStation exclusive, having had an extended period of Early Access where players could build and create before the game’s official launch. To a degree, the full release is more formality than anything, but this did mark a point where Media Molecule was no longer focusing on content itself, and instead adding new features.
Since the launch of “Blu” a number of the future updates have included minor improvements and bug fixes, but others have brought in new art packs and impressive features to help creators create even further. Periodically giving players new character packs and even blank puppets to make testing out new creations that much easier makes jumping in and building worlds better now than it was at launch. Even without the improvements its received over the last year, Dreams deserves its awards and accolades, but Media Molecule continues to outdo itself with each new update and feature.
One of the more substantial updates this year has been October’s newest addition that brought a whole new level of creating music in Dreams. The 2.18 update not only brought in a ton of new tracks to the game, buy also introduced a host of new instruments and and enhanced creation tool, so players could start writing their own music in the game. It’s the type of thing that not every player would necessarily gravitate towards, but it offers an impressive assortment of options for those with a passion for music.
Even for those that aren’t quite as interested in the music side themselves, having access to these new tracks and instruments can be huge for players looking to make full games like Ratchet and Clank inside of Dreams. Added onto this is that player created songs and music can also be utilized to enhance any adventures that some creator is trying to build, but doesn’t have the skills in music to bring it to life. Now, the ever expanding list of quality songs being produced through Dreams can become the soundtracks of adventures that are looking for a proper score to fill the game out.
Easily the biggest addition of the titles first year is the implementation of VR in Dreams, which allows players to create even more immersive worlds than ever before. Not only do the VR tools give players control of their worlds from the inside, but it adds a whole new dynamic for how they can create and what experiences they can express. It didn’t take long after VR was introduced for players to begin creating tours of real-world locations, or recreations of their favorite pop-culture spaces.
This highly immersive feature became especially handy in 2020, as players were encouraged to stay in more and more due to the ongoing pandemic. If a player could take a virtual vacation to the Grand Canyon in Dreams, then that could somewhat ease the burden of not being able to go out for much of the year. Fortunately, it looks like there is also more to come from the player community and from Media Molecules’ regular updates, as creators still tinker with their works in progress.
A number of creators who find themselves working on massive projects, like recreating Halo in Dreams, will often show off some early versions of their build before they are finished. As a result, there are tons of Work In Progress (WIP) creations out there that still have dedicated creators and contributors working to bring them completely to life. Of course, some WIPs are currently dormant, and will likely stay that way for the foreseeable future as players move on to other projects and life gets in the way of passions.
On top of this, Dreams is very much a WIP on its own, as Media Molecule continues to add new features, such as new social systems and replay shortcuts. Even though the game might be out of Early Access, that doesn’t mean that the developer is planning to pick up and move on to the next project or a Dreams 2. In fact, the developer even seems to have plans to fully take Dreams to PS5, so there are clearly more updates coming in the next year.
Dreams is available now for PS4 and PS5 through backwards compatibility.
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