Project Athia is an open-world game and looks “nearly identical” on PS5 and PC, Square Enix says

Related Articles

Destiny 2 servers down ahead of the 2022 Solstice launch – heres when you can expect to play

July 19, 2022

When does Fortnite Season 4 start?

July 15, 2022

Skate 4 gameplay, playtests, and everything else we know

July 15, 2022

Project Athia (opens in new tab), the next-gen action project that developer Square Enix revealed at the June PS5 showcase (opens in new tab), is an open-world game. 

As Gematsu (opens in new tab) reports, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda confirmed the game’s genre in a recent interview with the Japanese outlet Weekly Tokyo Keizai Plus (opens in new tab). “The game Project Athia, which we will release for PS5, is an open-world style game in which users can freely move around the game world,” he says. 

The reveal trailer for Project Athia – which is still just a working title, mind you – was an unsurprisingly vague look at the game’s world and protagonist, but it didn’t tell us much about how it plays. We saw some epic platforming and fantasy combat, and Square Enix described it as a “thrilling story-led, action-packed adventure,” but this is the first we’ve heard of it being an open-world game. 

Matsuda emphasizes the PS5 (opens in new tab) release here, but Project Athia is coming to both PS5 and PC. Matsuda touched on this later in the interview, praising the capabilities of the PS5. “PS5 dramatically improves video technology, such as with the implementation of light-reflecting Raytracing technology,” he says. “Compared to what you see on PC, it is nearly identical. By utilizing these special traits, we’re able to create incredibly precise imagery.” 

Beyond architectural similarities, PS5 and Xbox Series X (opens in new tab) are also much closer to modern gaming PCs in terms of sheer horsepower – much more so than any previous consoles, including the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. With M2 SSDs and beefier processors under the hood, both consoles should deliver distinctly PC-like experiences, so it’s encouraging to hear Square Enix support that comparison, if only graphically. Project Athia is still a long way off, but it’ll be interesting to see how its epic fantasy world looks on both platforms.  

Here are all the upcoming PS5 games (opens in new tab) that we know of.