TowerFall: Ascension hitting PlayStation 4 on March 11

Next month, PlayStation 4 owners won’t get to play the anticipated sci-fi military shooter Titanfall, but that doesn’t mean the system isn’t getting its own high-intensity multiplayer game.

Sony revealed today that the four-player frenetic fighting game TowerFall: Ascension will hit PS4 on March 11. It is an expanded version of the party title that hit the Android-based Ouya microconsole when that system launched in June. TowerFall was previously exclusive to that system — although developer Matt Thorson always planned to release a PC version, which is also coming soon.

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We’ve reached out to Thorson about the pricing for the PS4 version.

While the original release only had a competitive multiplayer mode and single-player challenges, Ascension will introduce a co-op quest. TowerFall is a simple-looking battler that has pixelated characters jumping from platform to platform attempting to kill one another using archery and melee attacks. Thorson is adding more than 50 new maps to this version for a total of 120 unique levels.

“[The new Quest] is an arena mode where monsters spawn from portals as you defend yourself using the same skills you’ve honed in Versus mode,” Thorson wrote in a blog post. “Quest mode is an interesting new take on the same core mechanics and adds a bunch of new content to explore even when you don’t have three friends around.”

Towerfall is one of the few standout games on the Ouya platform. Sony acted quickly after the game hit the scene last year to work with Thorson to get a PlayStation 4 release. This is just a small part of Sony Computer Entertainment’s wider efforts to bring more indie games to PlayStation platforms.

Microsoft and Nintendo are also both making their own efforts on this front. Nintendo enables self-publishing on its Wii U and 3DS eShops. Microsoft does the same for Xbox One. In fact, developers can even convert the retail version of the Xbox One into a development kit under Microsofts ID@Xbox program.

Regardless of this competition, Sony has had the most success in nabbing big-name indies like TowerFall for its consoles — with the exception of Microsoft making a concerted effort to get the smash-hit sandbox creation game Minecraft on Xbox 360 first.

 

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