The PlayStation showcase is a huge deal for gamers, who wait eagerly for new information to be revealed over the course of the event. It’s streamed live to millions around the world, many of whom are streamers themselves hosting watch-a-longs on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and others. We had the opportunity to entertain fans with an opening film, but that wasn’t enough. We wanted to reveal as yet unknown information in the most entertaining way possible, for gamers to pore over every frame, and come together to share theories. Our aim was to use the time we had to strengthen ties with our community and excite them about what was to come from PlayStation in the future.

Everyone thinks they know what gaming is like. But we wanted to show that every PlayStation experience is bigger, better, and more bombastic than what you think you know. From this insight, it was a short leap to taking a familiar, world-renowned game, and elevating every aspect of it to a new level. As soon as we developed the idea of a city with blocks laid out like a chessboard, the rest fell into place, and we had only to think of a real chess game narrative that would be easily interpretable on screen for the full puzzle to be complete.

By taking one of the world’s oldest and best-known games and elevating it to a level never seen before, we drew a parallel with the experiences available on PlayStation. It’s a game (or experience) you think you know, but at a new level: an unexpected, unprecedented, and unpredictable variety of experiences unlike anything you’ve seen before. By creating what Garry Kasparov dubbed ‘Chess 2.0’ we successfully demonstrated that even the world’s wildest expectations fall short of the reality of PlayStation’s next-generation entertainment.

The film debuted at the 2021 PlayStation showcase on 9th September to a global audience of nearly 4 million. The film was released online, with edits played in cinemas, TV, and VOD, in 45 markets and 35 different languages.

The response was game-changing. The film, ‘Play Has No Limits’ had 25 million impressions and over 5.5 million views. The adjoining PlayStation fan competition had over half a million entrants with over 100 thousand of them took home a prize. These included exclusive avatars, consoles, PlayStation headsets, gift cards, and even the King’s rings from the film itself.