There were a number of big-name announcements from Gamescom 2021’s opening night alone, both in terms of updates for upcoming releases like Halo Infinite and brand-new titles like the Saints Row reboot. But one slightly smaller game announcement, Dream Cycle, has been making waves because of who is making it: Toby Gard.
Anyone who doesn’t recognize the name will most definitely recognize his work, as Gard was one of the original creators of the Tomb Raider series. This fact is actually the first thing shown in the trailer for Dream Cycle, which also happens to be the first game to come out of Gard’s new studio Cathuria Games, with Raw Fury handling publishing.
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Unlike Tomb Raider, Dream Cycle looks to be a full-fledged fantasy game, with main character Morgan Carter finding herself trapped in another dimension and sapped of her own powers. She must embark on a quest to retrieve said powers and thwart her evil ancestor, who stole her powers from her in the first place.
Aside from various magical powers, players will be able to wield weapons like swords and guns as they explore the Dream Realms. According to the game’s description on Steam, it is based on the series of short stories by the same name, which were written by H.P. Lovecraft. Although it is unclear how much of a Lovecraftian influence there is.
While it’s not explicitly described as such, it sounds like Dream Cycle is being built to be a live service game of sorts. Not only is it releasing on Steam via early access, but Cathuria Games is aiming to create an infinite game, calling Dream Cycle an ever-expanding platform that will receive new content in the form of story chapters, weapons, biomes, powers, and enemies through regular updates.
According to the Steam page, Dream Cycle’s early access release will cover the game’s intro and the first section of the main story. Cathuria claims that it will still boast a whopping 10,000 Adventures across a single location, with each one taking roughly 10 to 30 minutes to complete.
It has been six years since Gard’s last game release, which was VR horror game Here They Lie. Before that, he also worked as game director on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. As for his work on the Tomb Raider series, he never actually worked on the subsequent sequels, having left after the first game released. He did come back after the Tomb Raider IP was acquired by Eidos, contributing to the development of titles like Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Underworld, however.
Dream Cycle releases for Steam via early access on September 7th.
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