Sackboy: A Big Adventure PC Review

Initial release: November 12, 2020

PC release: October 27, 2022

Mode: Multiplayer video game

Designer: Jack Houghton

Awards: BAFTA Games Award for Best Family and Social Game, BAFTA Games Award for British Game

Nominations: British Academy Games Award for Multiplayer, MORE

Genres: Platform game, Adventure game, Fighting game, Adventure

Developers: Sumo Digital, Xdev Software GmbH

Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows

"Review Copy Provided By PlayStation"

When I got my PS5 back in 2020 at launch, I bought all of the day one first-party titles from Sony with SackBoy: A Big Adventure being one of them. I admittedly didn’t spend as much time with the title back then as I was absorbed with Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Demon’s Souls, and that years Call of Duty, and yet I remember the time I did spend with the game was a ton of fun if not formulaic. Fast forward a few years, and now we have that same title now on PC with it being playable on the Steam Deck. Did this second go around of Sackboy’s latest adventure make me dive in and spend more time with it or did it fall back to the wayside? Let’s find out!

If you go into this title expecting the same gameplay that you experienced in the LittleBigPlanet series, then you’ll be in for a surprise as this isn’t a continuation of that series’ style but is a fully fledged out 3D platformer experience. The best way I can explain what this is like is to compare it to the Mario franchise going from Super Mario World to Super Mario 64 as it’s that much of a leap from the LBP series to this game from a technical and gameplay perspective. If you want to dive further into what Mario game this is most like, then I’d say it’s the most like Super Mario 3D World as it gives you a bunch of bite-sized stages for you to roam about and platform to and fro and what’s more is the overworld map is so heavily inspired by that entry that it’s kind of hard not to notice that the team at Sumo Digital has a deep love for that game.

The level design is absolutely brilliant and offers up the best of the genre. Every level has so much to uncover that you can lose yourself in the sheer scope of it all.

Drawing further from the inspiration of Super Mario 3D World is the fact that this game allows for 4-player local or online co-op that just delivers not only a lot of chaos but a lot of fun for the whole family and friends as the game was clearly built around playing with others in mind. The game isn’t very long as it can be beaten within roughly 8 hours, however it does offer a ton of replayability with the amount of content available within the game from collectables and more. The game supports the mouse and keyboard as well as Xbox controllers and also brings in PS5 Dual Sense controller support to allow full functionality of that controller with the haptics as well as changing the in-game prompts to the Dual Sense.

You get a slew of customization options for how you want Sackboy to look by pulling costumes from all of Sony’s first party franchises such as God of War, Returnal, Ratchet and Clank, The Last of Us, Uncharted, and more with none of these outfits requiring you to pay for them.

The game looks absolutely amazing on PC and even amazing on the Steam Deck with its stitched clothing aesthic visuals just popping out at you from the screen. Performance wise on the Steam Deck is quite good with the game being verified and having that usual PlayStation to PC optimization that Sony has become known for. Due to the fact that this isn’t as demanding as other PlayStation to PC titles, you can get a solid two and a half up to 3 hours of battery life with default settings and half screen brightness.

The PC port also nets you a couple of additional features not seen in the PS4/5 version with you having a slew of visual customization options to optimize how the game looks and runs with DLSS 2.4, however it doesn’t offer XeSS or FSR support for Intel or AMD card owners. A cool feature that this version has that is not in the PS5 version is ray tracing support which improves lighting, shadows, and general ambient occlusions. You get ultra-wide 21:9 monitor support and framerates higher than 60 with HDR along with VRR as well.

Beyond those settings bonuses, there’s no new content to speak of here.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a homerun for PC and Steam Deck users and is one of the most wholesome games that I've had the pleasure of playing both by myself and with my family. The game offers tons of customization and is one of the best platformers to come out in years that offers local and online co-op. If you are looking for another PlayStation title that’s come to PC to play or are looking for a stellar new(ish) platformer to dive into that drips with personality and offers up a stellar soundtrack, then Sackboy: A Big Adventure is the game for you!