TRON: Catalyst Preview

The TRON franchise from Disney has been well-tapped for videogame adaptations for decades now, including Bithell Games’ Tron: Identity, a visual novel from 2023. Bithell Games is back now with TRON: Catalyst, an isometric action RPG with time loops. Recently, I was able to give the first couple of chapters a go, and I had a great time with the game. Sure, I’ve only ever seen TRON: Legacy and played the TRON levels in the Kingdom Hearts series, and I don’t really know all of the lore, but I still enjoyed my time with Catalyst.

The story starts with a short prologue where you get to run around a city as the protagonist, Exo, a courier program running deliveries this way and that. Only today, she has an odd package that’s glowing with a strange light that seems to blink faster and faster until she tosses it aside and it explodes on a busy city street. That gave me some serious inFAMOUS vibes, which is always a good thing.

Later on, in Chapter 1, she wakes up in the custody of noted rude guard program, Conn. He decides that Exo knows something she’s not telling him, and throws her into an arena to fight and probably de-rezz — or, in human parlance, die. However, when Exo does go down and finds herself woefully unprepared for a fight, she winds up right back in Conn’s office, with him still needling her for information.

As it turns out, Exo can now loop through time, skipping back to the beginning of each chapter. For her first, she must use this ability to escape captivity. Later on, in Chapter 2, she again needs to use them, only now to make her way through a closely-guarded checkpoint and learn more about what’s happening to her. On the way, she even meets some characters you may remember from Identity.

In practice, these time-looping abilities mean that, whenever you de-rezz or otherwise decide to loop by holding down a button, you can restart the events of the current chapter with all enemies and NPCs reset to their starting positions. Some things carry over, like your knowledge, skills, and experience points, as well as shortcuts around the map and certain plot-related elements.

I definitely love time loops in games, especially with how you can use them to put together interesting puzzles and interactions. Catalyst, while only in the beginning stages, doesn’t disappoint here, with several instances of having to redo the day’s events in order to accomplish a different goal with new information. I did find that I wanted each chapter to last a bit longer, but what’s there is still very fun. Most of the puzzle elements focus on conversations with different people, where Exo can pick between a few different options as to what to say. There usually aren’t a lot of decisions for the player to make when talking to more plot-relevant programs, but the writing is still entertaining.

Outside of decisions, you can also beat the crap out of enemy guards. As per usual for TRON, this means pulling off your Disc and slicing everyone running at you with it. Exo can learn a few skills to change how things work using collectible points around the map, but for the most part, you have your standard attack, counter, and dodge roll options, with the added ability to throw your Disc at your enemies. It plays very smoothly, and I loved rolling behind people to ruthlessly attack them. I found it difficult to land the counters, but satisfying when I succeeded.

However, this wouldn’t be a perfect TRON action game without a Light Cycle, so it was very fun when I got to drive around the city in one. I mostly used it to get around faster, but it had everything: that solid light beam coming out behind you for other cyclists to ram into, an attack button… and the ability to go really fast and look cool while doing it. Yes, that counts.

In fact, a lot of Catalyst looks very cool thus far, taking the TRON aesthetic and delivering cyberspaces full of little details and buildings. The characters, too, have their own personalities, with the more important programs having unique glowing colours. For the longest time, I’d thought it was only shades of orange and blue that they could be, but there’s a very fun-looking character with a green shade, so I am very happy to be proven wrong.

Those same characters are also brought to life by some talented actors in a few scenes, and they each do a fine job. Alongside them, the soundtrack is full of techno delights, even if I personally didn’t notice any particular standout moments among them.

In any case, if you’re excited to give TRON: Catalyst a try for yourself and see if you can make it through time loop after time loop, look out for it on the 17th of June, on Windows, Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5!