In its next Tron game, Bithell Games is doing a Groundhog Day on The Grid

GamesActionIn its next Tron game, Bithell Games is doing a Groundhog Day on The GridWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Bithell Games)

Exo throws an identity disc in the key art for Tron: Catalyst.

Last week, Thomas Was Alone and Tron: Identity developer Bithell Games revealedTron: Catalyst, its next entry in Disney’s universe of identity discs, lightcycles, and lovely neon piping. With Catalyst, Bithell Games is trading the visual novel gameplay of Tron: Identity for a time-looping isometric action adventure, featuring a rogue program’s attempt to escape her city’s digital despots.

Tron: Catalyst is set in the Arq Grid—a different digital world from the Grid of the Tron movies. Introduced in Tron: Identity, the Arq Grid was created as a sanctuary for its virtual inhabitants to live without any contact with human Users. Unfortunately for Catalyst’s protagonist Exo, the Arq Grid is going haywire: Glitches have the Grid caught in a time loop, and she’s the only one who can tell.

Along the way, Exo will be doing a lot of lightcycle chases and identity disc combat. I caught a glimpse of Tron: Catalyst’s isometric combat during a preview back in September. Exo fights nimbly, transitioning between close-range swipes and long-range disc throws. Throughout the game, she’ll earn upgrades that’ll provide opportunities to shape her combat style, like a “Disc Kick” that lets you kick her disc after it rebounds from a throw for a quick follow-up attack.

Despite its top-down gameplay, Bithell Games is adding a lot of verticality to Exo’s exploration of the Arq Grid cityscape. “Something we talked about as a team was how to make a game feel like getting to know a place,” creative director Mike Bithell said during the preview demo.

The answer, Bithell said, was to build the time loops as “ever-increasing concentric circles of exploration,” with Exo continually unlocking shortcut codes that’ll provide quicker access to areas when she returns. In the demo, Exo unlocked a code for rooftop access, so she can move across rooftops rather than having to fight through street-level Core thugs during subsequent loops.

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While Tron: Catalyst will build on story elements from Tron: Identity, Bithell said Catalyst will be “definitely accessible” to newcomers; playing through the studio’s last Tron game won’t be required to understand what’s going on. Mostly, you’ll just need to understand that lightcycles are cool.

Tron: Catalyst is set to release sometime in 2025.

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