Sackboy: A Big Adventure (for PC)

It’s easy to forget that Sony occasionally produces platformers due to the press it receives for bombastic, action-adventure titles (Horizon Forbidden West, Uncharted) and sad dad simulators (God of War, The Last of Us: Part I). Originally released alongside the Playstation 5, Sackboy: A Big Adventure quietly makes its way to the PC with wide-screen monitor support, high frame rates, and Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). It was one of the strongest, most underrated PS5 launch titles, and the $59.99 PC game remains just as fun almost two years later.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a fantastic 3D platformer that's packed to the brim with just about everything you want from the genre: Simple controls, chaotic multiplayer, creative level design, gorgeous visuals, and an outrageously catchy soundtrack packed with radio hits. In many ways, the game feels like a fully realized version of Astro’s Playroom, and while it’s not quite as nostalgia-rotten as that PS5 pack-in, it all comes together in a delightful package that hooks you start to finish. Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a must-play title for PC gamers starved for platformers, earning our Editors’ Choice award with ease.

Cut From the Same Cloth

Over the years, it has become clear that Sony doesn’t really know what to do with its tiny, burlap sack of a mascot. Appearing as the humble avatar for the LittleBigPlanet series, Sackboy has remained largely dormant since 2014. Instead of letting the character languish, however, developer Sumo Digital pivoted away from LittleBigPlanet's creative sandbox to craft a tight platformer that focuses solely on action.

It’s a fair trade, as the gameplay itself is extremely good. Platforming vets will notice that Sackboy draws much inspiration from Super Mario 3D World, and while it is derivative, borrowing from the best is hardly a bad thing. The camera is static in all levels, so you explore the terrain from an isometric viewpoint (though it’ll occasionally shift overhead or to a traditional side-scrolling point of view).

To progress, you must collect Dreamer Orbs, mythical balls of creative energy, to stop the dastardly Vex from enslaving the sack people and turning Craftworld into a nightmare. A lofty challenge, but Sackboy keeps things simple, supplying you with all your basic platformer needs: You can jump, roll, punch, and grab, and upon completing a level, you’re free to explore a simple overworld that contains many secrets.

Sackboy controls just fine, but he could benefit from a sprint button—his movement feels a bit sluggish. Ditto for his jump, which includes a Yoshi-like flutter that's not nearly as useful as it should be. That’s not to say the controls are bad; I just wish that Sackboy moved faster.

What makes Sackboy’s adventure work isn’t its plot or its controls, it’s the inspired level design and art direction. Craftworld is made up of a great many things, and each level cleverly stitches together real-world items with the fantastical to give the environments a hand-crafted feel, calling back to LittleBigPlanet's DIY origins. That goes double for Sackboy, too, as you’re free to deck him out in a wide variety of outfits, including some from The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, and Uncharted. Levels are littered with secrets, alternate paths, and tons of Collectabells to, well, collect.

Across the game’s five themed worlds, you’ll find dozens of visually distinct levels, each with its own challenges and gimmicks. Variety is the spice of life, and Sackboy’s got a full spice rack. In one level, you’re bouncing in time to David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance." In the next, you use jellyfish to materialize an invisible path. There's a staggering amount of creativity on display, which kept a grin on my face. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed such creative level design since Rayman Legends or It Takes Two. If you want even more challenges, unearth the Knitted Knight time trials hidden throughout the game.

Although the levels are endlessly creative, the boss fights don't fare as well. They're not bad, they're just not necessarily as unique or fun as the levels leading up to them.

Make It a Party

Rest assured, you needn't venture through the levels alone. Sackboy: A Big Adventure supports both online and local drop-in/drop-out co-op with up to three other players. However, you are required to use an Epic login for online multiplayer whether you buy the game from the Epic Game Store or Steam. No crossplay exists between the game's PS5 and PS4 versions.

The levels are designed with co-op in mind, so while you are vying for the top place on the scoreboard, working together will always clear the objective—but are free to slap and grab your companions as you see fit. There are even certain levels designed exclusively for co-op and are not accessible without a friend.

Unfortunately, my experience online was a little quiet. Despite hosting throughout most of my playthrough, I was only able to find four concurrent players only a handful of times. A bummer, but at least there’s local co-op, a feature that’s becoming rarer and rarer these days.

What’s New in Sackboy: A Big Adventure?

The differences between Sackboy's PC and PS5 releases are minor, but they're mostly improvements. The PC build supports variable refresh rates (VRR), the ability to crank up the frame rate to 120 (as long as you have the proper gaming monitor), and widescreen support. If your gaming rig has an Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU, you can enable Nvidia DLSS.

DLSS drops the game's resolution and uses cutting-edge temporal algorithms to boost frame rates and upscale the image. The result? An image almost identical to the native resolution, a useful technique for people without the latest graphics cards. Sackboy lacks support for AMD Fidelity FX Super Resolution 2 (FSR2), which is a glaring omission since the tech was available for Uncharted: The Legacy Collection.

Many of Sackboy’s mascot outfits, added over the years since the original launch, are available at the start of the game. If players have a PlayStation Network account, they can link their account to unlock a PC-exclusive skin. And if you have a DualSense controller, you can use it to take advantage of haptic feedback and dynamic trigger effects. As a PC game, Sackboy has keyboard and mouse support, too.

Can Your PC Run Sackboy: A Big Adventure?

To get Sackboy: A Big Adventure up and running on your computer, Sony recommends a PC housing at least an AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or Intel Core i7-4770K CPU, AMD Radeon RX580 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 12GB of RAM, 60GB of SSD space, and the Windows 10 operating system. To run the game at 4K/60fps, your gaming PC needs at least an AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16 core) or Intel i9-9900k (8 core) CPU, AMD RX 6800 XT (16GB) or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB) GPU, and 16GB of RAM.

My testbed, which contains an Intel Core i7-10700K CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, ran Sackboy at a smooth 60fps (at 1440p resolution, and settings on Very High). Items in the game world felt like real material, whether it was the scuffed wood of a desk drawer, a bit of string hanging between platforms, the yarn that makes up the grass, and or the frayed stitching on Sackboy himself. These flourishes, as minor as they may be, just add to the lived-in nature of Craftworld.

To hit 120fps, I dropped the settings to Medium. Although I enjoyed the extra frames, the lessened visual clarity hurt more than expected. However, it's worth noting that there was some noticeable stutter at the start of levels. Once it passes, the game smoothly plays.

Sackboy supports game controllers, as well as Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, and Steam Deck.

A Stitch Above the Rest

Sackboy: A Big Adventure may not be the LittleBigPlanet follow-up fans are clamoring for, but don’t let that stop you from playing one of the best platformers in recent years. The game has a creative energy that few platformers match, making it an essential hop-and-bop title for all ages. It's another PlayStation hit successfully ported to PC, and one that we hope earns the recognition it deserves, starting with our Editors' Choice award.

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