Knack is an action adventure game about a creature made of relics

Knack, Japan Studio's upcoming action adventure game led by PlayStation 4 architect Mark Cerny, will follow the journey of a creature named Knack, who teams up with a scientist called The Doctor to find out how goblins have invaded the planet and what war technology they're using to do so.

The game is in a similar vein to Cerny's previous games like Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet and Clank — it's animated and friendly, and most of the gameplay we experienced at E3 this week was linear, with players being guided from location to location to fight enemies.

From what we saw at E3, Knack adds some twists to the already established action adventure genre. Knack himself is made up of hundreds of relic parts, so when he performs certain attacks, parts of his body go flying in the air. His parts hover closely together, forming new shapes when he performs certain movements. Jumping turns him into a flying ball, and attacking while he is in the air will throw his ball-shaped body at enemies.

Knack will also be able to slip into different modes that will benefit him in certain levels of the game. In a level we played that required stealthy gameplay, we used a stealth version of Knack, who could go invisible. The catch was when invisible, Knack has no defenses and is unable to fight back, so he has to switch back into his true form.

In an ice level we saw, we used an ice version of Knack who could smash blocks of ice and absorb them to make himself bigger and stronger. There is also a wood version of Knack who attracts fire to intimidate enemies.

Knack will release on the PlayStation 4 as a launch title.

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