Created by Rebecca Sugar, Steven Universe is a popular animated series on Cartoon Network. The show involves a boy named Steven Universe, who lives in the fictional town of Beach City alongside three humanoid magical aliens who are collectively referred to as Crystal Gems. Steven himself is half-Gem, and episodes focus on his adventures as he teams up with friends to protect Beach City from malevolent Gems.
The whimsical show was made into the mobile game Steven Universe: Attack the Light in 2015, where players controlled Steven and his friends as they traveled the world and battled a variety of enemies in order to retrieve prism weapons. The game released to high critical acclaim, earning a 91 score on Metacritic. Now Cartoon Network and Steven Universe are out to take on the console gaming world.
In an unusual move, Cartoon Network decided to release Steven Universe: Save the Light, a direct sequel to Attack the Light, as a console exclusive instead of starting a new spin-off series. Releasing this fall for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the game will be the second self-published console game from Cartoon Network (the other being OK K.O.: Let’s Play Heroes), and it continues Steven’s adventures as he and his friends seek to retrieve a prism weapon that was stolen in the previous game.
“We got such a strong response from the mobile game that people wanted it on console, but we made it specifically for mobile devices,” Zachary Moore, producer for Cartoon Network Games, told AListDaily. “When we went to make something new, we wanted to go bigger—and if you want to go bigger, you’ve got to go console. We wanted to explore the horsepower of a console and the longer play times of a console to tell more of a story that we couldn’t on mobile.”
Moore confirmed that Save the Light will have deep ties with the show.
“We work with the show team on basically every aspect of it [for] the dialogue and overall story,” he said. “If you’re a fan, you’re going to see some references that you might recognize from the series.”
A cinematic intro will get new players up to speed by explaining the basics of the Steven Universe show and what happened in the previous game. Moore is confident that players who are unfamiliar with the TV series and mobile game will still be interested in the console release.
“Honestly, it’s just a fun role playing game (RPG),” he said. “Anyone who is into this type of RPG can enjoy it. There’s no need to know every little detail about it, but fans will get a little more out of it.”
In Save the Light, players can interact with characters from the show in numerous ways, especially through combat, as players control characters using their signature weapons from the TV series. Outside of combat, the characters can talk to each other, and Steven has dialogue choice moments to direct the story.
But beyond interacting with the characters in the game, Moore doubts that there will be much cross promotion between the TV show and the game. Instead, the developers are treating Save the Light as its own semi-separate universe.
“It’s going to come down to episodes airing around the same time as the game [launches]. There are going to be little touch points between them, but it’s not heavily tied into a show storyline per se. Rebecca has been gracious enough to give us our own story universe to play in within hers. It’s really its own separate storyline—like the adventures that you don’t see in the show are being played out in this game.”
Similarly, Moore admits that there probably won’t be any updates to the mobile game to help drive attention to the console sequel, largely because the mobile game exists on its own. He described Attack the Light as a self-contained experience, and the console game is simply a continuation.
Moore suggested that Save the Light does promote the mobile game by virtue of being a sequel. “If you missed the first game, now is a good time to catch up on it to make sure you’re prepared for this console game.”
At the same time, Moore hopes that the console launch will encourage the mobile game audience to migrate over to consoles.
“People who have mobile devices and consoles—if they enjoyed the last game, I think they’ll really enjoy what we have for them,” said Moore. “It’s basically everything about that game, but even better.”
Moore also shared his thoughts about how the Steven Universe brand has inspired such a dedicated fan base.
“I think the essence of Steven Universe comes down to the teamwork, caring for each other, and supporting one another—that’s such a tenet of the show—and being tolerant and respectful of each other. That’s a strong point. You’re better off when you’re working together and being a team.”
