Thekla, Inc. today announced that Braid, Anniversary Edition is officially coming to PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC and Netflix on April 30, 2024. Originally released to critical acclaim in 2008 by Jonathan Blow, Braid is a puzzle-platformer that allows players to manipulate time in strange and unusual ways as they journey through unique worlds en route to rescuing an abducted princess. Upon initial release, Braid was heralded by critics with universal acclaim, myriad perfect scores and still holds a 93 on Metacritic.
Braid, Anniversary Edition reimagines what The A.V. Club called “the definitive indie game” for modern, high-resolution hardware via a variety of changes and updates that still preserve the fundamental integrity of the original release, including:
- Improved sound and new mixes and variants of the soundtrack by Martin Stig Andersen (Control, Inside) and Hans Christian Kock
- Hand-repainted graphics by original artist David Hellman
- Animations with extra frames, for smoother in-game motion
- Ability to switch back and forth between the old and new Braid on the fly
- 15+ hours of commentary featuring Jonathan Blow, David Hellman, Marc ten Bosch (Miegakure), Brian Moriarty (Trinity, Loom, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel), Casey Muratori (1935; Handmade Hero; Computer, Enhance!), Cris Moore (gamer, resident faculty at the Santa Fe Institute), Frank Cifaldi (Video Game History Foundation), Martin Stig Andersen, Hans Christian Kock, and Jakob Schmid.
Notably, the extensive and detailed developer commentary track offers a significant enhancement to the core Braid experience, as the Thekla, Inc. team offers their thoughts and insights into puzzle design, programming, visual art, math, the history of independent games and many other topics of interest to both fans and aspiring game designers alike.
“The goal is to make it the craziest, most-in-depth commentary ever put in a video game,” said Thekla, Inc. founder Jonathan Blow. “You can follow particular threads of commentary spatially, through wormholes that go from level to level to see evolutions of particular concepts; the commentary has lots of markup so we can circle stuff on the screen, point arrows at whatever visual detail we are talking about, show diagrams, play back recordings of gameplay to show what happens if you try doing this or that in a particular level, and many other capabilities.”
Braid, Anniversary Edition launches April 30, 2024 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC and Netflix. The title will also be coming to Mac and Linux at a later date.
