With the vast levels and slick movement, it feels like the player should never stop moving, something Game Director Alx Preston agrees with: “That’s very true. You can scale buildings in a few seconds. The buildings frozen mid-tumble cracked, broken walls twisted together with train rails, areas covered in a sticky goo that lets you cling to sheer surfaces. The tools at her disposal will allow her to explore, say, a broken capital city at high speed. Rei can skate at speed across the pillowy ground, slow time and jump or grapple across gaps, and grind rails. It’s like Jet Set Radio meets Shadow of the Colossus, with a little bit of Super Mario Galaxy mixed in. Completing their various challenges unleashes a giant boss that you have to ride and kill. The levels are built from the crushed, warped worlds that the void swallows, turning them into huge platforms for Rei to explore. Voidrunners are skillful skaters, who can traverse the twisted world that the Ultravoid creates.

You play Rei, a Voidrunner trying to save her home planet from being swallowed by a black hole called the “Ultravoid”. That lets them build on the tent poles of the previous game-exploration, action-while leaping right off them and grinding along a rail into the vast, unexplored territory of 3D! It’s not a sequel, though it shares the same universe as their first game. Solar Ash is developer Heart Machine’s follow-up to Hyper Light Drifter.

Solar ash time to beat