Tron: Catalyst review - I'm sorry I haven't a CLU

Metro

2 days ago

As a new movie prepares for launch, the latest attempt to adapt Tron into video game form comes with a very interesting and purposeful glitch.
Tron has always seemed like a franchise on the edge of greatness. The original 1982 movie was a hugely important milestone in the evolution of computer-generated imagery, but it wasn't really that great a film. Likewise, Tron: Legacy is most fondly remembered for its amazing soundtrack, rather than anything that actually happened in it.
Naturally, there's been many video game adaptations over the year, with two separate waves around the time of the two movies and an unconnected 2003 first person shooter from the now sadly deceased Monolith Productions.
The most recent tie-in was low-key visual novel Tron: Identity in 2023, from Thomas Was Alone developer Bithell Games. Despite being a small indie studio, the team was also responsible for the only John Wick game so far – which we loved but nobody else seemed to. Tron: Catalyst takes an equally daring approach to its subject matter, but this time the gamble hasn't paid off.
The unavoidable problem for all the modern Tron games is that Legacy was a much less visually interesting movie than the original, with an almost monochrome colour scheme and less fantastical costumes and designs. New film Ares, to which this is only nominally connected, is set in the real world and yet still everything looks bleak and dark, which really doesn't seem appropriate for a concept as inherently silly as Tron.
Nevertheless, designer Mike Bithell, who we had a good chat to about the game last year, does what he can, with an original story based on a different grid (aka server) than the one seen in the films. The idea is that the grid has been left alone for so long that most programs no longer really believe in humans and those that do have turned the concept into a kind of religion.
You play as a courier named Exo, who becomes involved in a plot to reset the server, caught between a dystopian police force and a growing band of resistance fighters. It's a perfectly reasonable set-up and does involve some interesting sci-fi ideas – like the super-evolved programs that have lost all connection with humanity – but the wider plot could be transposed to any other fantasy setting with very few changes needed.
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The game is played from a very distant top-down view, which doesn't help with the sense of immersion or your connection to the character, and only makes the drab art design look even more uninteresting.
What makes Exo unique is that she has a bug, literally called a glitch, that lets her reset the server whenever she wants. This means starting the current chapter of the story again, while retaining any abilities you unlocked or information you didn't previously have. So, for example, if your need a code for a locked door you can go off and find it, even if that ends up altering all the guards, and then come back later and use it.
It's a very neat idea and there's always a shortcut, literally or figuratively, involved that means you don't have to repeat everything a second time. However, it never really feels like the game is making full use of the ability, as there's generally no reason to use it except when the game tells you too and nothing that surprises you with its cleverness.
The combat involves melee fighting and using the (relatively) iconic identity disc, which is basically a Frisbee. This works fine in theory but there's very little sense of feedback for your attacks and as you face down armies of respawning enemies it gets old worryingly quickly; especially as the skill tree and the ability to steal enemies' moves make little practical difference. The top-down view really doesn't help either, given how much it distances you from the action.
Combat soon becomes a chore, with too many bullet sponge opponents, while minor enemies are easily confused by level furniture. Ironically, the AI is quite glitchy and often you end up taking advantage of its brokenness to get the action over with more quickly. More Trending
The other main action element is driving a light cycle, which is fun because of how fast they are, even if there's often little room to manoeuvre. Given the original Tron included a version of what would today be recognised as the game Snake (but actually started out as a coin-op called Blockade in 1976) none of the modern Tron games have done the concept justice and while Catalyst is perhaps the best of the bunch it still feels fiddly and random.
Catalyst is quite cheap but it's also very short, at around five hours, and with no real reason to ever play it again. Annoyingly, the ending is filled with hints at a third game (since this is technically a sequel to Identity) and yet there's been no announcement so far that one is happening.
The end result is a disappointingly joyless gaming experience, whose story and characters are surprisingly uninteresting, given Bithell's talents. The gameplay doesn't take any particular advantage of the Tron setting and the whole thing is just so ugly and bland to look at. John Wick Hex was much the same, but we easily forgave that because of the fun and original gameplay, but unfortunately Tron: Catalyst doesn't have that same advantage.
In Short: A disappointingly drab Tron tie-in that wastes some interesting ideas on dull and repetitive combat and an unequally unengaging story.
Pros: The glitch concept has lots of potential, even if it's not fully realised here. For better or worse, it looks like Tron: Legacy.
Cons: The storytelling is mostly uninteresting and there's barely any resolution. Combat is dull and repetitive. Glitch gimmick is never used in any particularly clever ways. Bleak and unengaging visuals.
Score: 5/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £19.99Publisher: Big FanDeveloper: Bithell GamesRelease Date: 17th June 2025
Age Rating: 7
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