Hello again PS.Blog. This is Chris Cobb with Ragtag Studio, developers of the forthcoming PS4 title, Ray’s the Dead. It has been quite a while since we last updated you on our progress, so we have quite a bit of news to share today, including lots of new information on the game, and the announcement that we are bringing Ray’s the Dead to PS Vita!

Ray’s the Dead was first announced for the PlayStation 4 at Sony’s E3 2013 Press Conference. Since that time, we have been hard at work at refining the controls, enhancing the features of our engine, expanding our arsenal of characters and fine-tuning the story. And finally, we’ve been developing the part of the game I’m most excited about, our flashback system!

I would like to refer to one of my favorite press quotes to tell you a little known fact about Ray’s the Dead: ‘Ray’s the Dead is a charming and thoughtfully constructed game that, while related to zombies, is really centered on the main character, Ray.’ -Cliqist. In Ray’s the Dead you not only play as Ray the zombie, but also as Ray the human. Much of the game is spent in fully playable flashbacks that tell the story of Ray’s past. These flashbacks are critically important to the game for a variety of reasons.

One, they let you meet first hand many of the characters from Ray’s past that you’ll also be meeting in the present. And second, they serve as a mechanic for unlocking Ray’s abilities. Extraordinary circumstances in the present will trigger flashbacks in Ray’s mind. While reliving these memories, Ray will ‘remember’ certain skills and abilities from his past, granting him the ability to use them in the present. You may be wondering what abilities Ray the human and Ray the zombie might have in common. Well, that’s part of the big mystery of the game, so you’ll have to play to find out!

We are also thrilled to announce that Ray’s the Dead will be shambling its way to PS Vita as a Cross-Buy title! Cross-Buy is one of our favorite features that many of today’s PlayStation releases share, so we are super excited to add Ray’s the Dead to that list. And let me tell you, this game looks gorgeous on Vita!

For those of you that had already planned to grab a copy of the PS4 version, surprise! Now you get the Vita version too!

We have a number of ideas we plan to implement in support of PS Vita’s unique features, including some degree of touch screen support, interaction between the Vita and PS4 version, and fully support for the upcoming PlayStation TV. We love Vita, and we want Ray’s the Dead to take advantage of all it has to offer.

You can help make that happen by grabbing a copy of the game off of our Kickstarter right now for less than what it will cost on release. This gives you a nice discount, and helps us make the game better – all at the same time. Everyone wins!

That’s all the news for now. I’ll be looking forward to your questions in the comments!