LittleBigPlanet 2 formally announced for 2010

Sony's just formally announced LittleBigPlanet 2.

The game's also confirmed for 2010, which confirms what sources told VG247 back in March during GDC.

Its existence was leaked over the weekend, thanks to the latest issue of Game Informer, with more recent leaks coming today.

There's a whole ton of stuff that's just gone live, with shots and art, plus five interviews from developers Media Molecule and a playtest from Sunday contributor Joe Anderson. There's a trailer here.

PR is below.

Announcing LittleBigPlanet™2 for PlayStation®3: Sackboy is back!
Have brand new adventures, explore the imaginations of millions – and Play, Create and Share not just levels, but whole games…

London, 10th May: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has announced the return of the world-conquering, award-collecting Sackboy in LittleBigPlanet™2 for PlayStation®3 (PS3™) – a game that will let your creativity run riot in ways you never imagined. Developed by the visionary team at Media Molecule, LittleBigPlanet 2 will provide fans a new means to PLAY, CREATE, and SHARE, including a revamped graphics engine supplying stunning visuals, a fresh storyline, added accessories and equipment for SackBoy, and revolutionary gameplay mechanics providing players a level of control and customization. This time, the game in the box really is just the start.

The multi-million unit selling LittleBigPlanet had the critics raving when it arrived in 2008. The game, where players meet on a colourful, patchwork planet to play as the charming, fully-customisable Sackboy, and create new levels for others to play via PlayStation®Network, heralded a new age of creative gaming, where players are constrained only by their imagination. Since launch, more than 2 million levels have been created by LittleBigPlanet fans, and uploaded to share with the rest of the community. Now, LittleBigPlanet 2 will explode the concept of Creative Gaming, offering exciting and unprecedented new possibilities – as well as backwards-compatibility with all of the existing LittleBigPlanet community levels and content.

LittleBigPlanet 2 begins with a brand-new, epic story adventure, where your quest is to save the LittleBigPlanet itself. On your journey you visit amazing places and meet wonderful characters as you run, bounce, swing and even grapple-hook your way to success. And then it gets really imaginative – in LittleBigPlanet 2, you can create not just levels, but whole new games. Racing games, shooters, platform challenges... cookery simulators even; if you can imagine it, you’ll be able to make it. Sackboy’s new set of simple but wonderfully powerful tools lets you create contraptions whose behaviour you can control, and populate new landscapes with Sackbots – automated characters who can help or hinder players. You can make intelligent machines, vehicles and puzzles, create cinematic cutscenes, and reassign the game’s controls to control any element of what you’ve made. Then, when you’re all out of imagination, you can take a break from creating to go and play what gamers around the world have been busy creating. Right now, no one knows what that will look like. If last time was anything to go by, though, it’s going to be amazing.

In 2010, the only limit to what you play is going to be the world’s imagination. Prepare for a revolution that’s truly going to blur the lines between gamers and games creators, breaking all the moulds and giving free rein to the creativity of millions... prepare for LittleBigPlanet 2. Find out more at www.littlebigplanet.com/2

ENDS