Active support and development of Dreams will come to an end on 1st September 2023, Media Molecule has announced, as they will shift their focus to “an exciting new project” – this is not going to be Dreams 2 or an extension of the Dreams IP.
The game will still be completely playable after that date, but there won’t be any more significant updates, game events or content releases.
The team writes:
“We know this won’t be an easy message for everyone to hear, and it’s certainly not been an easy decision – Dreams has been a special project for Media Molecule and helping this burgeoning community of game developers, tinkerers, creatives, collaborators and dreamers grow and express themselves remains one of the best things we’ve ever done. Thank you for being part of it with us – we look forward to you joining us on our next adventure.”
There are still some updates on the way, including Tren – a train-themed adventure made within the game by BeechCorp – an improvement to the game’s animation and a final Create mode update. After September 2023, there will only be critical bug fix updates being made.
Additionally, they will be undergoing a major server migration that will aim to preserve the game and the millions of creations that fans have made. The new server migration is set to take place in May, and it comes with some changes. There will now be a 5GB online storage limit with 256 photos, 256 creations and 512 versions per creation. Archiving creations will now be deleting creations, prize bubbles will no longer be a thing in the game, and a number of quests and trophies are being modified.
Most fundamentally for more musically focussed players, the audio importer will be temporarily removed, with an expected return in October 2023.
There’s more changes that can be read about on the Dreams update log, with an FAQ
It’s a somewhat sombre announcement, and it’s fair to say that there’s some lingering disappointment and sadness that Media Molecule’s most ambitious creative sandbox was never able to make the jump from PS4 to a native PS5 version or PSVR 2.
Is it worth playing Dreams? Well, it’s still a fantastically ambitious creation-first video game, and has grown an awful lot since its original release in early 2020. In our Dreams review we scored the ambitious PlayStation exclusive a 9/10:
Taking Media Molecule’s creative ethos to new heights, Dreams is a PlayStation essential. Booting the game up each time and having no idea what awaits is an intoxicating feeling. A remedy, forcing me from the rut of my predictable gaming habits to explore an inner creativity I’m often too lazy or wound up to let free.
Source: Media Molecule
TSBonyman
I missed this news during the week, just found out when i loaded up Dreams at the wknd. I’m gutted for the Dreams community, especially those who are partway through developing their projects and might now be discouraged from continuing. I’ve enjoyed some marvellous games, animations, music, music videos, VR and other experiences in Dreams and watched some folks progress from basic first steps to near-professional output as they got to grips with the tools and their own skills.
As for me, Dreams absolutely delivered on my wish for a convenient music creation studio on my console – and i’ve spent 1700+ hours in Dreams – even more than No Mans Sky!