Little Big Planet 3 – Sackboy, and new friends, come to PS4

Sackboy is back for another handcrafted explosion of community-driven creativity. There looks to be lots of new toys to play with, but the biggest change has to be new, expanded cast of characters.

Oddsock is first up, he’s basically a Sackboy dog. He’s immensely cute, of course, but he can also wall jump to reach platforms that others can’t, and he can run really fast. this can be used to dash past obstacles before they close, or to run on treadmills and the like to power objects in the gameworld.

Next is Toggle, who can switch instantly from a tiny little creature to a great big heavy one. When he’s small he fit through little gaps that others can’t, and when he’s big he get really strong so can push objects or buttons that others can’t, or use his weight to counterbalance things or set off some pressure pads.

Swoop is the last new character and he can fly, which is pretty handy in a platform game. Swoop can also pick up smaller characters, like little Toggle and carry them up to higher platforms. Based on the demo this can be pretty game breaking at times, though no doubt level designers will be able to choose which characters they permit in their games.

In addition to all that Sackboy himself now has a climbing ability so he can scale appropriate textured surfaces. All these abilities can be combined to solve puzzles and progress through levels.

Speaking of levels apparently there have been 8.7m levels made and shared from the first two iterations of the game, and all of these will be accessible to players of the new release on PS4, with improved graphics. It’ll be out this year, before Christmas, making it one of Sony’s few homegrown exclusives between now and the end of the year.

You’ll have to skip forward to 41 minutes in to see LBP 3