The dream is dead.

Media Molecule, best-known for their incredible run of “LittleBigPlanet” games that let regular people create and share platformer levels, took an enormous swing by shipping a shockingly elaborate creation suite on the PS4 called “Dreams.”

Players were no longer constrained to making 2D levels for leaping around. Instead, most anything you can think of in the audiovisual realm could be achieved in some form if you had enough spare time and initiative. They really did make our dreams come true, but all of that ambition was abandoned when Sony couldn’t figure out how to market it right.

Launched into an oddball early access period on PS4 in 2019, the full game didn’t release until February of 2020. Good thing nothing bad and distracting happened one month later, right?

When all was said and done, the 1.0 version shipped with a delightful campaign designed entirely with user-accessible tools. It’s a wonderful showcase of what is possible in “Dreams,” but the game still never quite achieved critical mass to become a proper cultural object in spite of the glowing reviews.

There was hope that as Sony transitioned to a PC-friendly company that we’d see a version on Steam that allowed mouse and keyboard users to work their magic. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Hell, we didn’t even get a PS5-native version of the game. Still slumming it with a PS4 binary all these years later.

Instead of giving the game more support, Sony laid off a huge swath of the Media Molecule staff, and there were even scary rumors swirling for a while that the entire studio was close to getting axed. We still don’t know what they’re up to, but I desperately hope that they find the populist hit they deserve.

While some people did use the tools to make games, most of what I ended up enjoying was the gorgeous art enabled by the “Dreams” tool set. Digital paintings, delightful animated shorts, and even little musical showcases made this game something special. It’s like a DIY art museum, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

Media Molecule isn’t supporting the game anymore, but you can still pick it up for a song on PS4. I would fully recommend buying it for the campaign, but don’t be surprised if you still boot it up from time to time to look at some weird abstract artwork.

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Image credit: “Dreams,” Media Molecule