The Tomorrow Children - Phoenix Edition

Q-Games may be best recognised for the PixelJunk series, but its otherworldly resource-gathering, town-rebuilding, kaiju-stopping game The Tomorrow Children left an indelible mark. To assume, of course, that you were present in 2016 to experience a moment of divine providence.

The players of this odd social action-adventure game, which was built on a shared online world, could roll into town and help out with exploration, hauling, building, and other miscellaneous tasks. After all, manual labour was the whole point of this Soviet-themed “alternate future.”

Everything I did felt laborious, methodical, and planned out. Working together for extended periods of time was tedious, but it paid off in the end. Players had unique experiences because they were part of a group while playing The Tomorrow Children (and some chaotic trolling). In spite of its merits as a niche product, Sony’s decision to shut down the game’s servers was disappointing but understandable. The game simply needed more development time.

The IP rights were returned to Q-Games by a surprisingly cooperative Sony Interactive Entertainment, and the game is now available once again on PS4 this week.

Since playing Death Stranding, I’ve been craving a second chance to read The Tomorrow Children. I never got very far in this long-since-lost game, but I really enjoy the concept of cooperative play toward a common objective.

The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition, in contrast to the earlier free-to-play version available only online, costs $40 and relies entirely on non-in-game “grind lessening” real-money purchases to remain in business. In addition, there is no central server; rather, each player has their own independent town and can work together with random players online or offline with the aid of computer-controlled NPCs.

This is a key distinction to make, as the game’s initially confusing nature has been toned down and the co-op feel is different than it was at launch. At first, residents will concentrate on bettering their own community before venturing out to assist others. While it was novel (if occasionally aggravating) to have completely shared towns in 2016, it’s nice to feel a greater sense of ownership over your own town in the 2022 update.

If you’ve never played The Tomorrow Children before, the Phoneix Edition’s tutorial mode will make your first experience feel more familiar and comfortable, which is a good thing. Once you’ve mastered the basics, other players can hitch a ride into your town. You can also explore the world by bouncing to different locations, which are only a few seconds’ wait apart in terms of loading screens.

In The Tomorrow Children, you may be confused as to your actual purpose. There is no longer any humanity (for reasons that are better experienced than described), and in order to restore at least some semblance of the old world, you must journey through the white quicksand-like Void that surrounds you. Your job as a specialised Projection Clone is to excavate huge sculpture-like “islands,” locate hidden matryoshka dolls, and transform them back into law-abiding citizens at base. While your town expands, you will gather the metal, food, wood, coal, and crystals you’ll need to build and maintain it.

Despite having a straightforward premise, The Tomorrow Children can be difficult to accurately sum up.

It’s not entertaining in the conventional sense. The going is slow, especially when you’re on your own, and you’re probably already familiar with many of the mining mechanics involving pickaxes. Conversely, I keep coming back for more. 22 hours as of this review.

However, even the most riveting “high points” may be too dull for some readers. And if that’s the case, you probably won’t change your mind no matter how far you get or how many fancy new (limited-use) gadgets you get to speed up the mundane grind. There will never be enough storage space, and the slow bus rides from the mainland to the islands will always be an annoyance. It’s all about the busywork.

Still, I find that the experience’s quieter gameplay moments add depth and significance. Depending on your perspective, The Tomorrow Children can be either a thoughtful or a mindless experience. I’d say I’m an average person.

For posterity’s sake, the Tomorrow Children game has been resurrected as The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition with a few key tweaks. The changes that were made in the nitty-gritty will be immediately noticeable to the diehards, but casual observers won’t notice a huge difference.

The lack of solid ground means that you will sink slowly into the Void as you explore islands now, which is one of the biggest changes. To avoid falling off the platform you built with the jackhammer, you’ll need to either take extra precautions or fortify it with crystals. Overall, I enjoyed the tension. I couldn’t sleepwalk because the slightest mistake would have disastrous consequences. Death, on the other hand, isn’t particularly harsh; it’s mainly just a waste of time.

P2P multi-player has been very reliable for me recently. Friends can use your town code to visit you, or you can browse a public list of towns to visit nearby ones.

While emotes are still the primary means of communication, players now tend to pursue their own goals independently before banding together to solve problems. (For more on this, see “Journey.”) On an island where the main character is collecting resources and dolls, I would stay behind to defend against invading Izverg, repair bombed-out buildings, and deliver cargo by busloads to the designated storage area. The crafting minigame where you have to slide blocks around to make things doesn’t bother me as much as it does other people, so I’ll keep doing it.

Your efforts, no matter how small, will always be rewarded with “Toil,” which can be spent on either 1) new equipment or 2) skill levels. Freeman Dollars can be exchanged on the Black Market for better quality and more durable goods. The Tomorrow Children is already painfully slow, and the Phoenix Edition doesn’t help. When comparing the paid content to the free-to-play era, I had hoped it would be toned down even further.

Being as versatile as I’d like to be is challenging when I’m on my own. The cost of basic tools like a pickaxe, shovel, jackhammer, and shotgun quickly adds up, not to mention the cost of high-impact upgrades like a missile launcher or the temporary VoidKa ability boosts. Synergy occurs when members of a group combine their efforts to maximise the value of each member’s coupon stash. But by myself, I had to take precautions.

Playing The Tomorrow Children offline or in a large enough group on the internet will be easier with AI helping out with some of the more mundane tasks. A.I. and human competitors coexist and occasionally swap roles as they go about their day. There were times when I simply couldn’t tell them apart.

The AI will never do anything too risky, but they do enjoy picking up scraps (both in town and on the islands) and riding in turrets to shoot at flying rays and stomping Godzilla-like Bankrotz. They will also make repairs to buildings while you’re gone, though they won’t rush the process.

Nonetheless, this is a significant advancement that aids in pacing. When you’re in the zone on an island trip that requires taking a long bus ride, it’s nice to know that you won’t have to micromanage every aspect of town upkeep. There’s no need to rush through everything right away; you can let some things pile up for a while.

Whether I’m playing solo or with others, I always look forward to the game’s platforming and tunnelling exploration. Q-Games claims there are over 40 islands, but I’ve already forgotten most of them. They ranged from a huge red face to outstretched arms, a cake to floating bubbles of colour to an old television set to a toy robot. These mountainous art installations can be enlarged by activating a transparent “monolith,” though in some cases this will take more than one person. A sinking island can be avoided by finding all the hidden dolls or by waiting a long time. The tension in the background was building, and I enjoyed that.

Although I was able to use a grappling hook and other new tools, I wasted a lot of bullets because I couldn’t quite get the hang of judging the distance between my target and myself. Also, I wish the jetpack wasn’t so far out of reach; I’ve had to wait for some islands to disappear before venturing to others.

Your town will be finished once you’ve brought back 50 people, but don’t worry—you won’t be “kicked out” forever. You can come back and continue to improve. Currently, I’m aiming for a population of 100 and upgrading my brand-new Town Hall with tonnes of metal. I have no idea what will happen next.

This re-release, dubbed Phoenix Edition, seems to have been less about making significant changes and “trying again,” and more about simply putting The Tomorrow Children back into the hands of players in a way that will ensure it will continue to be played in the future. So, while I do understand the scope, I do wish that Q-Games had updated or expanded some aspects (especially combat, which is often very one-note).

As someone who participated in 2016 but has only vague recollections of the event, I appreciate the opportunity to try my hand at this subversive social crafting adventure game once again. Honestly, it won’t have quite the same impact in 2022, but nothing else is quite like this feeling either. When the pumped-up music started playing on my home screen, I knew I was in for a treat. The graphics have aged surprisingly well, and while playing on PS5, I encountered very few technical difficulties beyond a couple of crashes on the day before the official release.

Certain fans will be satisfied with the inclusion of offline support and artificial intelligence bots; however, I’d still like to persuade as many people as possible to give the game a try, despite the fact that its high price tag and slow gameplay loop make it an unlikely recommendation for the mainstream. To be honest, I didn’t think this weird game would keep me occupied for more than 20 hours, but here I am with no plans to stop anytime soon.

When you’re quietly assisting strangers with mundane tasks, time seems to fly by. Strangely meditative.