My name is Jenny, and I’m the Communications Director for Ivy Road, the amateur theater currently developing Wanderstop. Our team is pleased to announce that Wanderstop will be available for PlayStation 5 on March 11, 2025. We are anxious for the opportunity for players to move into Alta’s shoes and lead to PlayStation’s custom of representing powerful, psychological storytelling in games. You’ll enjoy Alta, a former competition fighter, in Wanderstop, who has to place her troubled past behind to run a lovely shop and make tea for its various customers. One may assume that after a lifetime of commitment, dedication, and constant opposition, Alta would welcome the opportunity to slow down. However, Alta isn’t exactly like everyone else, and she wishes she could use this wonderful sleep moment to leave. Alta must spend time cultivating and obtaining the drink ingredients and mixing them in an unexpected tea-making contraption, conversing with the numerous visitors to the shop, collecting their tales, and creating tea to meet their particular needs.
In your interruption, you may tidy up around the opening, decorate the store in your style, or simply relax on a chair with a cup of tea and talk to your own ideas. Perhaps doing nothing at all is acceptable. The purchase demands persistence and rejects those who have just arrived in the unchecked pursuit of growth.
The concept of Wanderstop was first inspired by Creative Director Davey Wreden’s practice with fatigue, and each member of the team and project grew with their unique viewpoints. We also drew from the foundations of numerous warm and narrative games that have also explored contentious issues. In our launch date statement film, we had the opportunity to promote a bit of Davey’s trip. After finishing The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide, he felt very burned out after writing and directing two other sports a few years ago. He began looking into making a comfortable game in an effort to restore some balance to his life and to promote better work/life balance. As he got older, he discovered that playing comfortable games can be very relaxing, which is why they still have the stresses and difficulties that all game development has.
After collaborating with other members of the team, like co-founder and author, Karla Zimonja, craft producer Temi Olujobi, and lead artist, Steve Margolin, the game’s key themes and questions evolved. More than just creating a warm knowledge, there was a strain that they began to explore. What happens when a character doesn’t want to or want to be in a warm earth? The warmth, rather than just being the answer to her inward turmoil, became a point of contention for our hero, Alta, and it also became an interesting pattern factor for us as a group.
We looked towards many of the games now out that’ve explored these intersections of stress, pain, fatigue, and treatment, as well as previous exploration articles on topics like gamer motivation and the work on coziness from Project Horseshoe. We hoped to keep expanding on the ways that these kinds of games give players the opportunity to reflect and address potentially difficult issues.
In Wanderstop, there are ample activities a player can do to pass the time. Let your interests guide you in the tasks that will give you the most satisfaction. Players who enjoy decorating can spend some time picking up plants in the garden and the shops, petting adorable pluffins, and finding trinkets scattered around the glade. Periodically, visitors will arrive, providing an opportunity for conversation. Talk with them, see what’s on their minds, and perhaps take on a request to brew their favorite tea. Need a moment to yourself? Create your own cuppa, find a spot to sit, and take in the sights and sounds of the clearing. The music, which was composed by C418, dynamically shifts based on your game-related actions and serves as a relaxing background music to listen to.
These verbs of Wanderstop – brew, decorate, talk, sit, drink tea – all support our goal for you: that you find your own sense of meaning and connection to this world and Alta’s journey when it comes to PS5 March 11, 2025.