Sony’s PlayStation 3 is staring down its seventh year on shelves, preparing for its end. Sony’s system is going out with a bang though, with new games scheduled through the Fall. Among those releases is The Puppeteer, a beguiling game from Sony Japan Studios.
Sony announced on Tuesday that The Puppeteer will be available for $40 on September 10th. The platformer has a strange tactile look that’s reminiscent of Sony stable mate LittleBigPlanet, a comparison enhanced even more by the game’s puppet theater themes. The story is distinctly bizarre. You play as Kutaro, a boy who unfortunately crossed paths with the Moon Bear King. At the beginning of the game, the king turns Kutaro into a puppet and then promptly eats his head. Kutaro has to retrieve his dome and his humanity with the help of magic scissors.
The Puppeteer was one of three surprise PS3 games announced by Sony at the Gamescom conference in August 2012. It was announced alongside another Sony Japan title, the invisible boy-starring Rain, and teen horror and PS Move game Until Dawn, a collaboration between Supermassive Games and some Hollywood talent.
It’s somewhat surprising to hear that Sony is positioning The Puppeteer as a $40 game sold on disc. Similarly offbeat titles from Sony Japan released in the last year, like post-apocalyptic pet adventure Tokyo Jungle, was released on disc in Japan but only came to the US as a $15 downloadable. The Puppeteer’s pricing will likely follow other recent Sony releases like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, with either the exact same $40 price tag on PSN or a slight discount at $35. The price says less about the game itself and more about how Sony will approach pricing all its games, regardless of how its sold.
Sony Japan is having something of renaissance these past two years. It produced multiple successful games in 2012, including Gravity Rush and Tokyo Jungle, with Rain and The Puppeteer looking to keep things going in 2013.
