Lightfield – Futuristic Racing With A Twist

Lost In The Garden, a small development house based in Vienna Austria, have just announced their brand new racing IP called Lightfield is going to be released on the 26th of September for both the Xbox One and PS4. It will cost a not too unreasonable £15.99/€19.99.

Story

Lightfield is a "futuristic racing game with a parkour twist". At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that it's just another WipeOut clone but it is much more than that. Lightfield has no fixed path through its courses, the tracks are omnidirectional and will require you to learn them inside out to get the fastest times.

You will be racing in an antigravity ship, the ship allows you to race across just about any surface in game, including walls and tunnels. You will also be able to take flight for a short time as you go from one section of a track to another to find the best path.

Gameplay

There will be three game modes on offer in Lightfield. Race Mode, this is pretty self explanatory, Time Trial Mode, again, pretty much does what it says on the tin, try to find the best route through the courses in the fastest time possible and Exploration Mode, this allows you to break completely free of the tracks and go explore to your hearts content.

Lightfield will also feature online multiplayer and leaderboards and on top of that you have the option to play local four player split-screen at home. Nothing beats having your mates around and humiliating them face to face. Old school multiplayer still rocks.

My Take

WipeOut and F-Zero X are titles I remember fondly from my teen years. Both were blisteringly fast and jam packed with fun. Lightfield looks to build on that classic futuristic racing formula and bring its own twist to proceedings with exploration and some parkour elements thrown into the mix.

The local split-screen multiplayer is a big plus for me, it's something we don't see enough of these days now that everyone plays online. It's always a good laugh having friends actually in your sitting playing games. I'm sure some folks out there remember the good old days of four player GoldenEye on the N64.

A smooth framerate and clever level design will make or break Lightfield, if Lost In The Garden can deliver on both and offer enough diversity between the courses they might have a little winner on their hands. 

Is Lightfield something that interests you, please feel free to leave any thoughts you have in the comments below.

Video By Lost In the Garden

Image From lightfieldgame.com