The Gardens Between is out on PS5 this June 16! We’ve spent months custom-designing The Gardens Between for PS5 and it brings sharper detail, verdant HDR colors, and bespoke feel exclusively for the PS5 DualSense wireless controller.
To be honest, we thought that after four years of game development, things would calm down. We thought we would take it easy. But it’s been a huge journey and the reception has been beyond our wildest dreams. We’ve been nominated for over 30 awards, including several Game of the Year awards, and it’s taken us all over the world!
As perfectionists that we are, each new platform has taken a little longer than we thought. We started tweaking and improving the game for PS5 in early 2021, but we enjoyed the process so much that we continued to improve it at every turn. In this blog post, I’ll detail what’s changed and why the PlayStation 5 is now the best platform to play The Gardens Between.
A quick recap
The Gardens Between is a surreal puzzle adventure that follows best friends, Arina and Frendt, as they stumble into a mysterious world of beautiful garden islands. They wake up in a vibrant dream world that represents their important memories of an adventurous friendship since becoming next door neighbors. You control and manipulate time itself to help Arina and Frendt solve puzzles and unlock the secrets of the gardens. Together, you explore their blossoming friendship through their memories, all culminating in a climactic ending that I won’t spoil for you.
It’s a very unique game. The story is told without words or text. Instead, the story is conveyed ambiently through the abstract and surreal environment, the characters’ emotional reactions, and their growing friendship. Observation is essential to understanding history. The result is a welcoming and peaceful experience with no time pressure, failure states, or complex user interface to learn.
The game has been described as “the simplest deep game possible” and a “minimalist storytelling masterpiece” – descriptions of which we are very proud.
Ok, let’s dig into what’s new!
DualSense wireless controllers
The DualSense wireless controllers on PlayStation 5 are simply fantastic. The new high-fidelity haptics give a precise tactile sense, which inspired us to completely rebuild the haptic moments to take full advantage of the new technology. These new bespoke haptics are exclusive to the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller!
The haptics we added are designed around Arina and Frendt’s experiences in the gardens. We wondered “what sensations would they feel while navigating the lush gardens? The deep rumble of thunder. The ephemeral net of light floating in the lantern. The crackle of placing the lantern on a stone surface.
We also support responsive DualSense controller triggers. Push on any obstacle blocking your forward movement in time and you will feel time moving backwards.
Graphic jump
Thanks to the power of the PS5, The Gardens Between is more beautiful than ever. Upgrading to HDR (on compatible displays), combined with true 4k resolution at 60 frames per second and temporal anti-aliasing (comes first on PlayStation 5), gaming is both crisp and smooth. We then freed up full texture resolution where it was missing, improved line rendering, increased shadow accuracy, and perhaps spent an unreasonable amount of time adjusting water reflection shaders 🤓. He looks sublime!
On June 16, The Gardens Between will be available worldwide on PlayStation 5! We can’t wait to share this massive update with you.
We’re thrilled to announce that this update is free for all of our PlayStation 4 fans! Buy either version and get access to both versions. So you can check the changes for yourself.
Sincere thanks for performing our ode to childhood friendships. We deeply appreciate all of the positive feedback and it couldn’t mean more to us to be recognized for our deep and personal exploration of heartfelt and poignant storytelling.
