Neon White was one of 2022’s most pleasant surprised when it landed earlier this year, somehow managing to combine old-school shooters with speed-running, a card game and Persona’s social links. Now, having been out since June on other platforms, PlayStation owners will finally be able to play the game.
Having originally released on PC and Switch, Neon White is out on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on December 13. And while the PS4 version is going to be a fairly straight port, the PS5 edition will be taking advantage of the superior hardware to bring stuff like running at a constant 120hz and using the SSD drives to speed up load times (which will make a big difference when you need to restart a level for the 97th time).
Most interestingly, though, and in a move that will set the PS5 version apart from all the others, is that it’ll be using the console’s adaptive triggers. As director Ben Esposito says on the PlayStation Blog:
Neon White also makes use of PS5’s adaptive triggers to make each Soul Card feel unique when you fire them as well as when you discard. Controller Haptics provide an extra level of feedback on top of that. You’ll feel it when you’re moving faster on water and you’ll get a subtle confirmation when you successfully snipe a distant demon. Our goal wasn’t just to make you feel cool, but for you to develop a sixth sense. To turn you into a speedrunning freak.
Our impressions of the game back in June pretty much summed up the game’s appeal:
I’ve spent the past few days trying to figure out why this bizarre concoction of elements clicks, and I think I have it. Last summer, during Neon White’s initial marketing push, Esposito told me, “The energy that powers this game is teen energy. This is what I would have thought was the coolest thing ever when I was a teenager inspired by, like, Y2K era-anime and The Matrix and all this stuff.” Now that the game’s actually in my hands, this ethos is plainly evident—right down to the anime-inspired intro.
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