You can play this bizarre, beautiful and brilliant PS5 and PSVR game for free today

(Image credit: Enhance Studios)

published 24 February 2023

It's been a while since a game has really grabbed me, but Humanity has got me really intrigued: the game, which is for Steam, PS4, PS5, PSVR and PSVR 2, comes from the studio launched by Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Given that Rez is one of the best games of all time and a particular treat in VR, Humanity could be something special - not least because you get to play as a Shiba Inu.

Here's the trailer, which is just breathtaking.

Oh, the Humanity

The full game comes out in May, but you can play the demo right now: it's in the PlayStation Store. And I think you should, because if it plays anywhere near as good as it looks then it's going to be quite the adventure, delivering a mix of people, puzzles and platforming that's utterly unique.

According to Enhance, with a simple "woof" you tell your followers – who are huge crowds of marching people – what to do, whether that's to turn, to float, to climb or to shoot The Others, a rival group of people who are up to no good. The goal is to save all of humanity, so no pressure.

The game promises over 90 distinct stages, "wild boss fights" and the ability to create and share your own stages with others, and while you don't need a PSVR or PSVR 2 to play it I suspect that like Rez Infinite it'll be quite magical when you're playing with a VR headset. And I'm particularly pleased to see it being made available for the original PlayStation VR for those of us who haven't yet persuaded ourselves to drop more than the price of a PS5 on Sony's second-generation headset.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).