The gameplay of Gravity Rush

Find out how you'll be able to control gravity in the eagerly anticipated action adventure title coming to PS Vita in June 2012.

In our third and final inside look at the making of Gravity Rush, the development team at Sony Japan lifts the lid on the unique ways you'll be able to use your PS Vita to interact with the richly detailed game world.

A shift to freedom

One of the most characteristic features of Gravity Rush's game system is Gravity Shift. The controls are simple - the player holds down the right button and tilts the PS Vita system in the direction they want to go in.

We think that Gravity Shift gives the player a strange sense that they are looking out of a tiny window into another world that stretches out to a different dimension. This really couldn't have been achieved without the PS Vita system's highly accurate motion sensor and beautiful OLED screen, so we were really lucky to have it as the platform for the game.

Freedom to play

When we were in the initial planning stages for Gravity Rush, we were thinking that we might just allow players to control gravity within a specific, safe route that would be laid out in a puzzle-like fashion, with big falls damaging the character.

Then, as the player progressed, their range of skills would slowly expand until, around the middle of the game, they would finally have full freedom of movement. Once we sent this plan over to the test team, however, we had mixed reactions.

We received a lot of feedback along the lines of "the true originality and fun of this game is felt when players can control gravity and move about freely, without limitations," and that "players should be able to do this from the start." While we were initially concerned that this amount of freedom from the beginning would quickly become boring, we decided to go along with it in the end, doing away with damage incurred from falling too.

Gravity hero

What we realised was that players didn't want to worry about limitations and damage – they wanted to be real heroes, experiencing all the excitement Gravity Shift had to offer. For example, they want to be able to chase an enemy in-between buildings and then, if they get away, they want to leap into the sky to look over the city and find them again.

It can be said that the true enjoyment of the game lies in letting the player experience that sort of cinematic action.

That's it for our exclusive behind the scenes look at the making of Gravity Rush – be sure to check out the previous instalments in the series – The characters of Gravity Rush and The world of Gravity Rush – ahead of the game's launch in June 2012.