Neon Giants's debut title, The Ascent, was be released in July 2021 on Xbox and PC but not on PS4 or PS5. Exclusive games are not exactly rare in the current climate but given that this is not a first-party title for Xbox, will the exclusivity last?
Let's take a look a what the future of The Ascent looks like and whether or not the game will eventually come to PS4 or PS5. In the mean time, you can check out our review of The Ascent here.
LATEST - The Ascent is coming to PlayStation!
In an announcement made today (24 February), developer Neon Giant have confirmed that The Ascent is coming to PlayStation systems on Thursday, 24 March.
This comes after some subtle teasing over on the official Twitter page in recent days.
The Ascent's Xbox Exclusivity
The Ascent was a title picked up by ID @ Xbox given that its developer, Neon Giant, is just a 12 person team comprised of top talent formerly of AAA studios. Among its staff are people who've worked on titles like Gears of War, Far Cry 3 and Doom.
Curve Digital will be publishing the title and what's most notable is that they are not in any way a first-party Xbox studio. The Ascent will be launching on Xbox Game Pass also which is a major coup, but does this mean that the game will not be coming to PS5 at all?
While it hasn't been confirmed by the developer or publisher, a PS5 or PS4 version of The Ascent is yet to be ruled out entirely. As attractive as it surely was to partner with Xbox for launch, any indie developer, especially one creating its first game, will want to ensure that as many people as possible can play the game.
For, this reason, we would hazard a guess that The Ascent is likely a timed-exclusive with at least one-year exclusivity to Xbox consoles and would be free to release on PS5 from July 2022. It's also possible that the game could go on to release on the Nintendo Switch as well given that it isn't too graphically demanding and a port would be relatively simple to produce.