'I felt like we'd done what we wanted to do in 2D. 'I put my due diligence in, otherwise I wouldn't be a very good creative director or producer, especially in the early days being the one motivating much of the design,' he explains.

While Drifter's sole animator Sean Ward had actually trained in 3D, Preston found familiarising himself with Unreal was a thorough and required education - even though the studio was staffing up with people who already have that skill set. 'It's one of the reasons why Solar Ash has taken almost five years, because that transition from 2D to 3D required us to not only learn but also pull in people who are experts in their field.' 'It was probably the single biggest challenge, building out that team and then making sure that we have the right roles filled and making sure that we all work in as unified a manner as possible,' Preston adds. It also involved growing Heart Machine from its core team of five during Hyper Light Drifter to around 25 people. The leap from 2D to 3D required a radical transition, not the least of which was learning Unreal Engine. 'My goal is ultimately to create worlds that you can get lost in, and 3D is the best way to do that long-term.' 'I felt like we'd done what we wanted to do in 2D,' he says. It's more than a change in perspective or genre - for one thing, Solar Ash is more focused on exploration and traversal than Drifter's combat - but a far more ambitious and technically challenging undertaking, and that change in direction was an obvious progression for Preston. While his next game is said to be set in the same universe, it couldn't be more different: Solar Ash is a 3D open world action platformer that takes more inspiration from the traversal of Super Mario 64 and Jet Set Radio, while its colossal bosses that inhabit the world conjure comparisons with Shadow of the Colossus. The developer's acclaimed title Hyper Light Drifter was a 2D top-down action RPG reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with a vibrant pixelated aesthetic.

Heart Machine founder Alx Preston, however, wasn't going to stay in his comfort zone. It's not just because there's now a proven audience but the developer also has an opportunity to expand, improve, or refine a successful formula. Given the difficulties of shipping any game, when a developer lands on a hit, it's natural to want to follow up in the same style or genre if not an outright sequel. Game development is often about iteration as much as innovation.

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