''Polybius'' is a 2017

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

video game developed and published by Llamasoft. It was released in May 2017 for the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

, with

PlayStation VR The PlayStation VR (PS VR, known by its code name Project Morpheus during development) is a virtual reality headset developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was released in October 2016. It is fully functional with the PlayStation 4 an ...

support available. A version for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

was released in December 2018. The game takes its name and inspiration from the fictitious 1981 arcade game ''

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

''. It was positively received by critics.

Gameplay

Llamasoft's ''Polybius'' is a fast-paced 3D shooting game with elements of racing games. The game's play was designed to minimize

virtual reality sickness Virtual reality sickness, or VR sickness occurs when exposure to a virtual environment causes symptoms that are similar to motion sickness symptoms. The most common symptoms are general discomfort, eye strain, headache, stomach awareness, nausea, ...

by the use of continuous forward motion with limited abrupt changes and no interruptions to gameplay other than controlled breaks at the end of each level; however, the game does include intense visuals. Although designed as a VR game, ''Polybius'' is fully playable in 2D on a standard

, and also includes support for

3D television 3D television (3DTV) is television that conveys depth perception to the viewer by employing techniques such as stereoscopic display, multi-view display, 2D-plus-depth, or any other form of 3D display. Most modern 3D television sets use an ...

output.

Development and release

In 2016, Llamasoft announced a game called ''Polybius'' for the

with support for the

. ''Polybius'' was added on the PlayStation store on Tuesday May 9, 2017. In early marketing, co-author

Jeff Minter Jeff Minter (born 22 April 1962) is an independent English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 19 ...

claimed to have been permitted to play the original ''Polybius'' arcade machine in a warehouse in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

. He later more realistically stated that the game was inspired by the urban legend, but does not attempt to reproduce its alleged gameplay. He said it was instead based on his interest in the ability of video games to induce the psychological state of flow (also called "being in the zone") and his own observations of positive psychological effects as a result of playing VR games, most notably the unreleased VR version of ''

TxK TXK (Telephone eXchange Crossbar) was a range of Crossbar switch, Crossbar exchanges used by the British Post Office telephone network, subsequently BT, between 1964 and 1994. TXC was used as the designation at first, but this was later changed ...

''. Minter also cited influence from multiple other classic games including ''

Space Harrier is a third-person arcade rail shooter game developed by Sega and released in 1985. It was originally conceived as a realistic military-themed game played in the third-person perspective and featuring a player-controlled fighter jet, but techni ...

'', ''

After Burner is an Arcade video game, arcade vehicular combat game developed and released by Sega in 1987. The player assumes control of an American Grumman F-14 Tomcat, F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, and must clear each of the game's eighteen unique stages by des ...

'', the 1983 vector game ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'', ''

S.T.U.N. Runner ''S.T.U.N. Runner'' (Spread Tunnel Underground Network Runner) is 3D racing/shooter game released in arcades by Atari Games in 1989. The player pilots a futuristic vehicle which can exceed 900 mph, through various tunnels and courses with ...

'', ''

Zarch ''Zarch'' (also known under its ported name of ''Virus'') is a computer game developed by David Braben (better known as the co-author of '' Elite'') in 1987, for the release of the Acorn Archimedes computer. ''Zarch'' started off as a demo call ...

'' and quite possibly ''

NanoTek Warrior ''NanoTek Warrior'' is a tube shooter game developed by American studio Tetragon Inc. and released by Virgin Interactive in 1997. Gameplay NanoTek Warrior uses behind the ship perspective. There is a total of eight levels in the game. Each lev ...

''. ''. On July 13, 2017,

industrial rock Industrial rock is a fusion genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. It initially originated in the 1970s, and drew influence from early experimental and industrial acts such as Cromagnon, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten a ...

band

Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN and stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor was the only permanent member of the band ...

released a music video for the song "

Less Than In mathematics, an inequality is a relation which makes a non-equal comparison between two numbers or other mathematical expressions. It is used most often to compare two numbers on the number line by their size. There are several different n ...

", featuring a woman playing ''Polybius''. Llamasoft later described the version of the game used in the video, a custom build running on the PC with user configurable effect sequencing. As of November 7, 2018, the game page on the

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

store is live, with a Q4 release date, playable in VR or non-VR. On December 21st, 2018, the game was released for PC.

Reception

''Polybius'' received positive reviews from game critics. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it holds an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 84 out of 100, based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". ''

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

'' called it "one of the definitive action games of the current generation". ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...

'' awarded it a Recommended trophy, labeling it as "magical" as well as one of Llamasoft's best works. The website also ranked it 44th on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017". The game was nominated for the Coney Island Dreamland Award for Best Virtual Reality Game at the New York Game Awards 2018.

References

{{Jeff Minter 2017 video games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation VR games Shoot 'em ups Video games developed in the United Kingdom

Gameplay

Development and release

Reception

See also

References