I’ve always wanted to play an open-world Tron game. There’s a massive potential to explore the possibilities of what this sci-fi Disney franchise could become if done right.
I had this thought since I rewatched the first Tron movie a few months ago. While the special effects and the pacing were a product of its time, I thought to myself “What would a Tron open-world RPG look like?”
Let’s speculate!
The first order of business is to make a portion of the Grid fully explorable for our character. No, we don’t necessarily have to play as Kevin or Sam Flynn. Rather, it needed to be an original character that somehow made their way into Flynn’s Arcade. Players could freely customize who this character is a la CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 and dive deep into the Grid.
The Grid would have to be populated by NPCs, likely other human beings trapped into the digital space. It could also be just nameless NPCs made of binary code traversing across the neon-soaked space of the Grid. Players would take on a few fetch-quests here and there and make a name for themselves in the game’s world.
As for its story, it doesn’t have to stick close to what the succeeding Tron movies established. It could likely stand a chance if it existed just before the game’s main villain, The Master Control Program (MCP) steps in. Our player character would have to lead up to the events of the movie and explore The Grid before everything turned worse.
Traversal in a Tron open-world game is obvious. It has to use the franchise’s iconic Lightcycles (in memory of Syd Mead) as we ride through the neon landscapes of The Grid with ease. We would eventually encounter rogue NPCs along the way and engage in traditional Lightcycle battles like Kingdom Hearts 2’s sequences, but without Donald and Goofy to back us up.
But what about its combat? Now that’s the neat thing. Combat in a Tron open-world game could just be anything, but one shouldn’t ignore how cool its arsenal of weapons is. Having access to the franchise’s iconic Identity Discs would be a power fantasy I’d love to see. Imagine our main character throwing the discs at enemies with style. It would have to follow closely to what Rocksteady’s Arkham games created, with its satisfying melee combat and quickfire mechanics.
Hacking would also be a great mechanic here, but it should have to be innovative and not just what BioShock or Fallout did with their minigames. It could likely borrow a few pages from Capcom’s hacking mechanic in Pragmata, where you can hack enemies mid-combat.
Honestly, we could be talking about a potential Tron open-world game for hours and I can go on and on. I see the vision, and it’s only a matter of time before a random Disney exec discovers that there’s an actual demand for a fully functioning Tron open-world game.
Just please don’t make it a live-service slop.
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