After a symphony, on-line multiplayer and a remaster, the well-regarded (and infrequently handheld) puzzler Lumines is getting Improve’s full synesthetic, Tetris-flowing, remedy. Lumines Come up is sort of right here.
If you happen to haven’t performed the sport earlier than, Lumines’ premise facilities on rotating and dropping four-square blocks made of 1 or two colours, increase bigger squares of a single colour. The sport’s timeline sweeps throughout the playfield – to the beat of the soundtrack – erasing accomplished squares in its path, whereas additionally supplying you with the temporary alternative to rapidly drop extra squares, add multiplier combos and rating much more factors.
Lumines Come up provides a brand new mechanic to the addictive but easy puzzle. ‘Burst’ is a refillable bar which you could set off with L2/R2, which locks a sq. on the taking part in subject, permitting you to pile on subsequent blocks. You’ll be able to provoke Burst as soon as the counter has rolled above 50, though it maxes out at 100. As you would possibly anticipate for a synesthesia-tickling sport like Come up, Burst mode has its personal low-key musical accompaniment.
Lumines has by no means regarded higher. However that’s not simply as a consequence of 2025 {hardware} energy, but additionally design decisions for Lumines’ skins – the unhinged wallpaper design and block themes that bubble up as you advance by way of puzzle phases. They’re delightfully mad and, at instances, distracting. (As you play, the view of your Lumines blocks will often ‘zoom’ nearer – that is intentional. Recreation Director Takashi Ishihara mentioned this was to each add some dynamism to what are sometimes static blocks, but additionally to tug the gamers’ consideration again to the sport at hand. Lumines Come up needs you to concentrate on the now, not the rating, your Burst meter, or your customizable avatar.)
My favourite a part of the demo was the ultimate stage, which featured two chameleons merely raving alongside to the dance music. The soundtrack is, naturally, a banger, too. Lumines Come up options new music from Hydelic, additionally answerable for the award-winning soundtrack of Tetris Impact: Related. (The band has already launched one monitor, “Solely Human,” on Bandcamp – it’s coming to different streaming companies, too.)
On one other stage, two skeletal fingers, seemingly strung up like puppets, twitch and wriggle as you shift and rotate your blocks. If something, I feel Improve missed a trick not mapping the finger actions to a DualSense controller. I mentioned that in entrance of Ishihara as a result of I’ve zero sense of decorum — apparently, he’d had the identical concept. I now contemplate myself a sport designer.
I acquired to briefly see Lumines Come up working on a Steam Deck, too. The time of the handheld console and PC is now, so it is good to see a sometimes made-for-consoles sport prepared for this new gaming PC kind issue.
Ishihara teased that there’s extra to disclose forward of Come up’s launch. The sport will launch on each PS5 and Steam, and it’ll additionally function VR compatibility on each platforms. Whereas Improve wasn’t but keen to disclose the small print, there can even be some type of multiplayer, however it looks like it’ll be in a distinct kind in comparison with the extra adversarial nature of Tetris Impact’s multiplayer modes.
Moreover, Ishihara needed to spotlight that the avatars, which dance and emote in sync along with your in-game actions, now function legs. That’s important, apparently. Improve is promising extra solutions in due time. Lumines Come up is about to launch in fall 2025.
