Each and every year, E3 manages to surprise gamers with unexpected reveals, action-packed trailers, and first-looks at the best games you’ll be playing in the months ahead. Yet in a year filled with emotionally devastating games like The Last of Us Part II and headscratchers like Death Stranding, one game stood out, mostly because it was so earnest, colorful, and laugh-out-loud funny. That game was Trover Saves the Universe, the latest title from Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland and his fiercely funny team at Squanch Games. It’s an action platformer—a once thriving game genre that now seems increasingly like a curio—infused with classic gameplay and the same sense of humor that brought us TV’s smartest and funniest sci-fi series, Rick and Morty. But this isn’t just a clone of Roiland’s hit animated series; rather, it’s a video game built from the ground up for virtual reality, and it turns genre tropes on their heads in surprising ways.
Trover Saves the Universe is “coming soon” to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR. Having played the game in VR, I can safely say that virtual reality seems like the best way to experience Trover in all of its majesty. But per Roiland and Squanch Games, it is playable in boring old regular reality too, and each version will contain different jokes, to boot. Exploring the E3 demo, I was immediately reminded of classic platformers like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot as I explored the weird, wild world that Roiland and company had created. It was intuitive, familiar, and genuinely hilarious as I jumped, slashed, and maneuvered Trover through alien landscapes on a mission to blow up some guy’s house. While attending this year’s E3 in downtown Los Angeles, I sat down with Roiland to discuss what he hopes to achieve with Trover Saves the Universe, the seriously silly lore behind the game, and much, much more.
Will you be playing Trover Saves the Universe? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: Squanch Games
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Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).
