Tron: Evolution Game Review

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By bridging the gap between 1982’s Tron and Tron Legacy, Disney-owned Propaganda Games has made a different kind of licensed tie-in to a big-budget movie release. Tron: Evolution abandons the human stories of the digital world’s programmers and their families for an adventure starring the programs themselves and their struggle against a rampaging virus called Abraxas. 

Disney is held back much of the game’s story, but the basic premise is out there. Tron: Evolution happens in 1989 – coincidental the same year that Jeff Bridges’ character programmer Kevin Flynn, has gone missing in the fiction heading up to Tron Legacy’s millennial setting. Actress Olivia Wilde is lends her full likeness to the game in her role as helpful program Quorra, entailing that the character plays as pivotal a role as any human being in the ongoing story. The mysterious Abraxas virus is slowly corrupting the whole digital realm, and the player is drawn into this war of extinction. The protagonist’s personal identity isn’t known, but given the bare handful of humans that gain their way into the programs’ reality, we are not be surprised  that players can take on the role of an artificial construct themselves.

Gameplay is developed as a blend of free running and melee and mid-range battle employing the iconic disc versus corrupted, malicious programs. Several games have tried to fuse these disparate components into a cohesive whole with variable degrees of success. Propaganda has put in lightcycle arenas too, which also form the foundation of the online multiplayer . 

Tron: Evolution aces the universe’s genuine aesthetic perfectly. Disney’s willingness to employ a licensed game to improve and explore the Tron fiction instead of retell the films’ stories is an excellent sign for the future of film tie-ins.