It seems unlikely that Media Molecule will return to the Little Big Planet franchise, at least not anytime soon or with a direct sequel. Studio director Siobhan Reddy said in a new interview that the studio is “all-in” on its recently launched game-creation game, Dreams, leaving no bandwidth for more LittleBigPlanet games from the team.
“We’re all-in all Dreams,” Reddy said. “That’s what we’re all doing right now. We’ve got so many plans, and we are a really small team. It’s going to take every one of us, working on it together to get through all those plans that we have.”
As Reddy mentioned, Media Molecule is a relatively small studio by AAA standards, with around 50 people on staff. The company has an extensive roadmap of ongoing support and content for Dreams, which is taking up the studio’s time currently.
Reddy teased that, while Dreams is Media Molecule’s sole focus at the moment, the studio plans to add “cool stuff” within Dreams, and this could potentially be themed around LBP.
“We love LBP and LBP will always be our baby. Dreams is our spiritual successor to it. At this very point, the plan for us is for Dreams to be our main focus and to make the cool stuff we want to make in that, but who knows what that content will be,” she said. “But it will be in Dreams.”
The first LittleBigPlanet launched in 2008 for the PS3, with LittleBigPlanet 2 arriving in 2011. The third game. LittleBigPlanet 3, was developed by Sumo Digital and released in 2014. It marked the first release in the mainline series to be developed by an outside studio, though Media Molecule did consult on the game.
Also in our interview, Reddy reacted to the launch of Dreams, which was received very positively from reviewers and fans alike. “I think we’re all a little bit dazed, if I’m honest,” she said. “Delighted that people are enjoying it. It’s now that moment where we can step back a bit and see what it actually is. We still have that nervousness of a new product that’s out there, so you know, it’s complex emotions–but all good!”
Reddy went on to say that the studio is feeling “really good” about Dreams, and she remarked that it’s been brilliant to see all the different user creations come online. “It’s suddenly like, ‘Oh wow, it’s alive,'” Reddy said.
The developer also told us that Media Molecule is currently thinking about the possibility for a Dreams marketplace where creators may be able to sell their content on PlayStation Network for anyone to play. The specifics about how all of this will work is complicated, and Reddy said more details will come later.
“We’re not quite ready to announce anything on any of that as yet. We’ve always had a dream that people from the community would be able to figure out content that would be published on PSN,” she said. “But the details of that, there are so many details about that, from the idea and the execution of that. There will be more to talk about in time, on all of that.”
In our conversation, Reddy mentioned multiple times that Media Molecule has an ongoing support roadmap for Dreams that extends through the year. The next big update with all PlayStation VR support, but what might come next? It’s too soon to say, but many are wondering if Dreams will support PlayStation 5, which launches later this year.
Reddy wouldn’t be drawn into commenting on this. “We’re not talking about PlayStation 5 just yet,” she said. “So I need to not talk about that.”
It seems likely that Dreams will be on PS5 as well, as Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healy recently spoke about how it’s an “obvious progression” to move Dreams from PS4 to PS5.
