Solar Ash (NSP, XCI) ROM

Solar Ash is an adventure platform game game developed by Heart Machine and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was released on December 2, 2021, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Microsoft Windows. It was also released via Steam on December 8, 2022, and it was released for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on September 14, 2023.

The game’s science fiction story explores themes of trauma and moving on from dramatic, devastating life events. It is set in the same fictional universe as Heart Machine’s first and previous game, Hyper Light Drifter, but there are no direct connections between the two games’ stories.

From the award-winning creators of Hyper Light Drifter emerges Solar Ash, a high-speed, gravity-warping world. Amidst a surreal dreamscape of ancient, deserted civilizations, take on the role of Rei, a relentless Voidrunner determined to rescue her planet from the insatiable Ultravoid’s eternal hunger.

Battle grotesque creatures, revel in rail-grinding, ascend to dizzying heights with your grapple, conquer colossal bosses, and surf ashen clouds from long-lost worlds devoured by the void. In this unique, highly stylized action adventure, can Rei triumph over the perilous challenges of the voracious void and safeguard her home? Will she unearth the truth about the colossal beasts in this enigmatic realm and solve the mysteries of the Starseed and Echo? Discover the answers within the Ultravoid.

GAMEPLAY

Solar Ash is an adventure platforming game. The player controls the main character Rei, a Voidrunner within a black hole known as the Ultravoid, through a bright-neon-colored, three-dimensional landscape, avoiding obstacles and attacking enemies with energy slashes and a phase-shifted and hard light sword, as Rei tries to save her planet. The game’s focus is less on combat and more on movement, as lead developer Alx Preston stated “We’re traversal first. That was kind of the vision of the game: Control the traversal, the environments that you’re moving through, and the spectacle of it all. Especially the scale on the grandiosity of it just feeling impossibly large and you’re feeling tiny and insignificant in as many ways as possible. The traversal takes precedence and the combat is kind of intermingled with that traversal.”