The recent D23 Disney & Marvel Games Showcase featured a significant number of exciting announcements for fans of the Disney and Marvel franchises. On the Disney front, one of the most interesting reveals was the upcoming Tron: Identity virtual novel which brings the Tron universe to an entirely new medium.
Disney's Tron: Identity announcement at D23 came in the form of an ominous and brief teaser trailer depicting an iconic Tron identity disc, or light disc, gradually illuminating while accompanied by a fitting sci-fi soundtrack. The trailer ends with the message "Uploading 2023" along with indie developer Bithell Games and Disney's logos, and an indication that Tron: identity can be expected to release for PC on Steam. Game ZXC spoke with Mike Bithell at D23 about the tone and direction of Tron: Identity which features a more moody and mature Film Noir detective mystery setting in contrast to Tron's traditionally family-friendly presentation.
The story of Tron: Identity takes place in a new Grid that has been neglected and left to evolve on its own. Players will follow the adventures of Query, a detective program attempting to uncover the mystery of a break-in at the Grid's Repository. The virtual novel is heavily dependent on player choices, allowing players to decide exactly how to interact with the denizens of the Grid. Players can form alliances, cruelly spurn characters, or outright derezz them.
In the process, players will dive into the memories of the Grid's inhabitants, engaging in puzzles to defrag their Identity Discs. As to Bithell Games' approach to the Tron franchise, Bithell said,
In my opinion on Tron, if you look at what's existed in the past, it feels very like a Western. So it's very much ironic in Tron, no one picks up a phone, no communication. Because everyone's going where they need to go, it feels almost preindustrial in a weird Sci-Fi way, and that's a really specific and interesting tone. It's a very easy swipe to take that toward Film Noir, toward the detective story because, obviously, detective stories are rooted in Victorian fiction.
So, you're in the same kind of box. As a writer, there's definitely a connective tissue where you go, 'okay, I can see how this kind of curves into this.' And that worked really well in terms of like tone. It's definitely a mature story, in the sense that it's about interesting characters, relationships, people can get erased in the game, you know, and that's actually really interesting because of the number of like big choices you make that can cause wildly different outcomes. But yes, it's still Tron. We're not going to do a nature rating Tron. That wouldn't be true to what people love about the vibe of Tron.
Bithell Games is a developer known for producing a strong collection of well-received strategy and tactical games like John Wick Hex, as well as several other titles that lean heavily into stylized cyberpunk art styles that lay a perfect foundation for a Tron game. Despite being classified as a virtual novel, Tron: Identity will clearly be more than reading text with a fancy hand-crafted backdrop. The sorts of unique puzzles one can expect from an experienced strategy games studio will also be present, along with a branching story that has multiple outcomes.
This partnership between Disney and an indie studio like Bithell Games is a great sign for the future of forward-thinking indie games developers as they get more chances to work on iconic franchises like Tron, something one would usually expect to be entrusted to a big-budget AAA studio. The Film Noir detective story perspective on Tron is also a delightful twist for the franchise and may attract a new audience to the Tron universe.
Tron: Identity releases in 2023 on PC and consoles.