Media Molecule Bets Its Future on Open World

"I would dare to go as far as saying it's more of a game than a creative tool, from what I understand about it."

That was former Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey speaking in May 2024 about whatever his old studio was cooking up next. At the time, it sounded like a reasonable pivot after Dreams failed to find a mainstream audience. Now, thanks to a developer portfolio spotted by MP1st, we have a much clearer picture of what "more of a game" actually means: an open-world title with forage design, points of interest, and moment-to-moment gameplay scripting. In other words, Media Molecule appears to be building something that has almost nothing in common with anything they've ever made.

The portfolio belongs to a senior environment designer who joined the studio in April 2025. It references an "unannounced project, New IP" and lists responsibilities including "level blocking out main POIs" and being a "feature owner" for "various open-world content." The mention of forage design is particularly interesting because it suggests survival or crafting mechanics, the kind of systems you'd expect from a game chasing the same space as Valheim or Enshrouded rather than LittleBigPlanet.

A Studio With Something to Prove

I'll be honest: this excites me and worries me in roughly equal measure. Media Molecule is one of the most creatively ambitious studios PlayStation has ever had. LittleBigPlanet basically invented console user-generated content, and Dreams was an absurdly powerful creation engine that deserved a bigger audience than it got. But building an open world is a completely different discipline. It requires scale, systems design, and a content pipeline that studios with ten times the headcount still struggle with. Media Molecule underwent layoffs of 15 to 20% of its staff in October 2023, after ending support for Dreams earlier that year. Whatever they're building, they're building it with a significantly smaller team.

There's also the question of identity. Media Molecule's DNA has always been about player creativity and handcrafted charm. Pivoting to open-world design, a genre that's been oversaturated for years, feels like it could sand down exactly what made them special. Or it could mean they're bringing that signature tactile weirdness to a genre that desperately needs it. I don't know which way this falls, but I know that a generic open-world survival game from Media Molecule would be a waste of their talent.

Some speculation from Gameranx suggests this could be a return to Tearaway, the studio's Vita and PS4 platformer, reimagined in open-world form. Sony is rumored to be reviving dormant IPs, and Tearaway's papercraft aesthetic could translate beautifully to an explorable world. But the portfolio explicitly says "New IP," so unless that language is deliberately vague, a Tearaway revival seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, the studio's old mascot has been quietly sidelined. Sackboy: A Big Adventure, the PS5 launch title developed by Sumo Digital, landed solid but unspectacular reviews, and Astro Bot has since taken over as PlayStation's de facto platforming mascot after winning Game of the Year in 2024. LittleBigPlanet as a franchise feels like it's been put to bed.

A PlayStation State of Play is scheduled for June 2, 2026, but there's no indication Media Molecule's project will appear. Given that the game hasn't been formally announced beyond Healey's 2024 comments and this portfolio leak, it's likely still early in development. For a studio that hasn't shipped a game since Dreams in 2020, the pressure to get this right is enormous.