Though Steve Jobs was not the first person to say it, it’s inherently clear that when the Polish indie team at Plastic Demo sought out to make their next game, his motto was in some way at the core of their vision. Seeing how well it’s served Apple, it’s not hard to see why you’d want that mentality at the center of your creation, but achieving it is something entirely different.

Creating a game that’s simplistic purely to be simple can come off as unambitious and visually dull. Is it just a low budget game? Are the developers not experienced enough to piece together something more captivating? Those are all perhaps fair questions that come to mind when the word ‘simple’ is tossed at a game.

But what if the opposite is true? What if simplicity was chosen on purpose to drive the imagination? What if that simplicity was put in place in order to explore more mature themes and paved the way for a world that’s driven by music and dance? And not just any dance, but ballet. Add to all of this a virtual environment and we now have the recipe for something truly unique.

Designed initially for PS4, Bound has since transformed and taken on the challenges of becoming a VR game head-on. While press was able to try the ‘normal’ version of the PS4 exclusive title, what I wanted to see was how simplicity could be applied to a virtual reality environment.

Details are still light on the game, which will arrive on August 16th on PS4 and October 13th for PS VR, so instead of getting too much into the game at this point (we will hopefully have a much more meaty piece alongside a review in the future), I’ll get a bit into my own personal experience with the game.

When you first put on PlayStation VR, you can’t help but notice a design that’s perhaps inspired by TRON, albeit more colorful. Like all VR titles, the first thing I tend to do is take in the world and despite its ‘simplistic’ design, you can’t help but be engrossed in the rich colors and complex textures it offers. While traditionally in games you rely on moving the camera around to figure out your next course of action, one of the wonders of VR is the feeling that you’re in middle of it all and to train yourself that you simply need to look around to see where you should head next.

Soon after, the beautiful score (fully appreciated by this soundtrack nerd), composed by Ukrainian native Heinali, begins to set the scene to help drive the narrative forward. In a game that’s all about movement and emotion, you’ll be in awe of the fluid ballet movements of the female character you lead as she dances her way throughout the 3D world.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend viewing the above trailer. It’s easy to single out Naughty Dog for creating such a lifelike character in Nathan Drake but I’ll be damned if traversing in Bound doesn’t incorporate some of the most fluid movements I’ve ever seen.

As I mentioned previously, Bound is all about emotion and perhaps VR is the key to that. With the headset on and the score at play, you feel as if you’re in middle of this world with something at stake, your own heart. It might sound cheesy but Bound isn’t about saving the world but instead about self discovery and the demons we face internally that get in the way of us moving forward.

Like Journey and other similar titles before it, Bound certainly isn’t for everyone. Yet like those games, it’s quite clear that anyones who’s tried it has had nothing put praise. One of the great things about the PlayStation community is the diverse palette of games we’re offered and it’s good to know that VR will be a part of that from the beginning.

Perhaps best yet, the simplistic nature of Bound also makes it a much less taxing affair for those new to gaming or curious about VR, making it an easy recommendation when PS VR launches in October. However if you can’t wait till then, the VR component of the game will be a free addition for anybody who purchases Bound as a normal PS4 title this August.

Discuss:

Is Bound a game you’d try?