During CES 2024, Sony has showcased Torchlight, their new real-time visualization facility. Surprisingly, the showcase included a brief look at their work on the upcoming Gravity Rush movie. At least, that’s what we assume it was. The segment that starts at the 2:15 mark in the video shows a character jumping from a rooftop, passing by floating buildings (somewhat resembling Gravity Rush 2’s Lei Colmosna) and plunging down towards a city that’s being attacked by a monster (vaguely resembling Gravity Rush 2’s final boss). The original Gravity Rush logo is shown in the top-left corner, and the character wears a costume with Kat’s distinct sun symbol on it. We also get a brief look at the motion-capturing for this scene.
The confusion caused by this brief Gravity Rush footage ended up overshadowing the rest of the video, which was supposed to highlight Torchlight. While I think it’s far too soon to draw any conclusions from the footage, the many negative reactions on the video show that Sony would do well to finally communicate with the Gravity Rush fans about the movie. In fact, Gravity Rush is not listed on the official PlayStation Productions website and they’ve yet to officially announce the project.
It’s puzzling then that Sony chose to reveal this footage without context. Especially given that the current status of the Gravity Rush franchise at Sony is unclear at best. Back in 2018, Gravity Rush 2’s online servers were shut down 18 months after the game’s release. Afterwards, Sony shut down the iconic Japan Studio along with Team Gravity, with the majority of Gravity Rush’s development team leaving Sony. So we’re left with the question why Sony is now working on a (we assume live-action) movie for a gaming franchise that may otherwise no longer have a future with them. This brief look at the movie ended up leaving fans with even more questions than answers. Hopefully, we’ll learn more soon about Sony’s plans for the future of Gravity Rush.
