The Tomorrow Children is an adventurevideo game developed by Q-Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4.[2] The game was released as an early access title on September 6, 2016 as The Tomorrow Children: Founder's Pack, and was fully released on October 25, 2016, but was shut down by Sony in 2017.[3] Q-Games later purchased the IP and released the game on September 6, 2022 as The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition. with enhancements for playing the game on backwards compatibility on PlayStation 5.[4][5]
Gameplay
The Tomorrow Children is a social simulation, action-based, third-person game, which is structured around cooperative town building, gathering resources, and exploration in a post-Void surreal world. Players manage projection clones, the avatars whose duty is to rebuild human civilization, reclaiming lost souls and building communities on a series of floating islands.[6]
The central cycle of the game is traveling to islands created in the Void, collecting resources including wood, metal, coal, crystals, and matryoshka dolls, and transporting these resources back to the player's town. Collected materials allow the construction and renovation of buildings, infrastructure, and utilities to accommodate a growing number of resurrected citizens.[7]
The players can employ diverse tools and skills, such as shovels and pickaxes to dig and mine, and unique Void Powers to change the landscape and make it easy to maneuver through some tricky spots. Towns are also threatened by huge monsters called Izverg that raid the town at regular intervals and have to be repelled by means of fortifications and organization.[8]
Players and materials are shuttled between the town and the islands via a system of buses, and although players may play cooperatively, the Phoenix edition has solo play with Comrade AI companions.[9]
The main objectives are population growth and town development. Matryoshka dolls that come out of the Void can be transformed into new citizens[10], and this contributes to the increase in working space and the appearance of new building opportunities. Players also make the layout of their town, buildings, and aesthetics, which make up a constantly growing settlement.
Development
The Tomorrow Children was announced during Gamescom 2014 at Sony's press conference in August 2014.[11]
A public beta test occurred from June 3–6, 2016.[16]
Audio
Voice casting and dialogue work was completed by Glen Gathard and team at Shepperton studios.[17]
Discontinuation and relaunch
On July 6, 2017, six months after its launch, it was announced the game would cease operations on November 1, 2017.[18] The game was discontinued due to the inability to properly monetise the game, in addition to the cost of running the servers.[19] In the years following its shutdown, Cuthbert noticed that players were continuing to share screenshots and videos from the game.[19]
On November 9, 2021, Q-Games announced that they had acquired the IP to The Tomorrow Children from Sony Interactive Entertainment and intended to "rebuild" and relaunch the game at a later date.[20] This was an unprecedented move, as SIE had previously expressed disapproval towards the idea of selling their IPs.[21]
The game was re-released in 2022 as The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition. Its dependence on a central server and microtransactions were removed in order to ensure it would remain playable offline.[22] The new release is no longer free-to-play.[23]
Reception
The Tomorrow Children received mixed or average reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Since its discontinuation, The Tomorrow Children has been recognised as being ahead of its time due to its art style, graphics and lighting.[24]
