Russian Subway Dogs is now available on PlayStation 4, so I got in touch with Miguel Sternberg to catch up on things. Come check it out!
PS4Blog: Hi Miguel! It’s good to have you back with us. How’s everything on your end?
Good! Happy to finally have the game out on Playstation 4! Tired!
PS4B: Last time around, when we talked about Russian Subway Dogs, you mentioned that the plan was to launch the game in 2022. Since it’s now 2023, and the game was finally released on PS4, I did want to ask what had happened along the way and why the plan changed.
It was less a deliberate change in plans and more that development can just be slow and unpredictable. Moving from PS Vita development to PlayStation 4 and Xbox, I needed to switch to the latest version of the GameMaker engine. That required a few things to be rewritten and introduced some subtle bugs to track down.
I also had a couple of side projects that took me away from the ports. A vinyl soundtrack for Russian Subway Dogs was released by Very Ok Vinyl, and an upcoming limited physical release of our game They Bleed Pixels on Switch from Premium Edition.
So yeah, just very busy, and everything takes more time than you expect!
PS4B: Are there any differences between the original PlayStation Vita release and this new PlayStation 4 version?
Yep! The big gameplay-related one is that, unlike the PlayStation Vita release, the Playstation version has online leaderboards, so folks can finally compete for high scores in Endless as originally intended!
Outside of that, the sound design has received a major overhaul with a lot of additional sounds giving it a richer soundscape. I also reworked some of the presentation around the final two levels to make the ending a little clearer and give it more impact. The Kittens have also been busy with their crayons and will draw some extra doodles when you clear all the bones on each section of the map.
There are some other little art tweaks that keen-eyed players might catch, a new sprite to make it clearer when fish die from choking, some subtle lighting effects on a couple of levels, that sort of thing.
On the gameplay side, I made some adjustments to Endless Arcade, tweaking several of the Proletaricat missions and adding a brand-new one. The result should hopefully be even more variety in Endless mode. Some combinations of wildlife and commuters that were extremely rare have more chances of occurring.
There are also the things you’d expect, minor bug fixes and some subtle balance tweaks. In short, the game received an extra level of polish. This is the final update the game is getting across both consoles and PC, so I wanted it to really shine. It’s definitely the best it’s ever been!
PS4B: Are there any plans for a physical release of Russian Subway Dogs on PS4?
Hoping to make that happen now that it’s finally out. We’ll see!
PS4B: Now that the game is out on Sony’s console, what’s next on your schedule? Will you be taking a break? Or are you currently working on a new project?
I’m taking a big break. I was already pretty burned out when we shipped Russian Subway Dogs on PC. The rush to get the PS Vita version out before the deadline and just generally porting through the pandemic only made that worse. I need to just chill out and recharge my batteries for a bit.
In terms of future projects. I have a bunch of notes and sketches, ideas for future games that I’m going to slowly start exploring. I’m also thinking a lot about what I can learn from Subway Dogs to hopefully speed up development, so games are taking a year or two at most. We’ll see how that goes!
PS4B: And now it’s time for us to go. Would you like to add anything else?
Since it’ll likely be a year or two before I announce the next game, I’d recommend folks subscribe to the Spooky Squid mailing list if they don’t want to miss the news.
I’d also say follow me on Twitter, but it looks like the site is actively on fire right now, so who knows how long it will still be around?
