GDC 06: Heavenly Sword Demo

Mar 22, 2006

In his platform keynote address at GDC 2006 this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison presented the new PS3 game Heavenly Sword. Developed by Ninja Theory, the PS3 title was one of the most amazing in the E3 2005 presentation reel, with internet talk on the game hot and heavy after its showing. The demo then was not real-time, but this one was.

For today's demo, the warriors from last E3's presentation were shown again -- sequentially added to the desert environment by the dozens time and time again. Once the soldiers were in place, hundreds of them were blown up and thrown about as before by a fireless explosion.

This time, however, the whole shebang was pulled off in real-time, with real physics and real-time sound production. The camera in the demo zoomed out to show characters as if ants miles away, then zoomed tight for close-ups of any figure.

We'll have tons more info on Heavenly Sword as soon as we can from GDC and afterwards.