Ultros, a psychedelic action game about gardening in deep space

Design director Marten Bruggemann explains why he set out to make a sci-fi game that's as much about cultivation as combat

Video game action-platformers might have had their golden age in the 1980s and 90s with Metroid and Contra, but the genre's modern resurgence has given us exceptional games such as Dead Cells and Hollow Knight, showing that bone-crunching combat and pin-point platforming still work beautifully together. But how do you breathe new life into this familiar video game form? In the case of Ultros, you complement the usual thrills and spills, with a spot of gardening - an opportunity to slow down and smell the roses.

Game design director Marten Bruggemann says the gardening isn't just about growing resources (although that's a useful outcome of getting your hands dirty), but deepening your relationship with the game's teeming, nature-filled world. You can plant as much as you want, evolving the plants and shaping them in different ways to make hybrids," he says. We want to give life to an ecosystem."

Ultros is out in 2024 on PlayStation 4 and 5.