Mark Cerny is basically a legend. If you've touched a PlayStation console in the last three decades, his DNA is all over it. He’s the guy who helped architect the PS4 and PS5. So, when Sony announced that Cerny was actually directing a launch title for the PS4, expectations were weirdly high. That game was Knack. It wasn’t exactly the killer app people wanted, but it remains one of the most fascinating case studies in modern game design.
Honestly, the first game got a bit of a raw deal. Critics absolutely shredded it at launch. They called it repetitive. They called it dated. But if you look at the technical bones of Knack, it was doing something pretty wild with physics that we still don't see often today.
The Physics of a Relic Monster
Knack is a creature made of "relics." These are tiny little floating bits of ancient tech that stick together to form a sentient being. The technical hook was that every single one of those relics—sometimes thousands of them—had its own individual physics and collision detection. In 2013, that was a huge flex for the PlayStation 4's CPU.
When Knack grows from a three-foot-tall gremlin into a thirty-foot-tall skyscraper-smashing kaiju, it feels heavy. You can feel the mass. The game wasn't trying to be the next God of War. It was trying to be a playable Pixar movie that showed off how many moving parts a console could handle at once without catching fire.
The gameplay loop is simple. You walk through a linear level, punch some goblins, pick up more relics, and get bigger. Then you lose those relics and get small again. It's a constant ebb and flow of power. Sometimes you’re sneaking through laser grids as a tiny glass version of yourself; other times, you’re literally swatting tanks out of the air.
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Why Knack 2 Actually Fixed Everything
Most people didn't expect a sequel. The "Knack is back" meme became a massive thing in the gaming community, mostly because of YouTuber Dunkey, but Sony actually listened to the legitimate feedback. Knack 2 came out in 2017, and it's a significantly better game. No, seriously.
One of the biggest gripes about the first game was the combat. It was basically "square, square, square" until everything died. It was punishingly hard, too. One hit from a stray bullet and you’d shatter. In Knack 2, they added a legitimate skill tree. You got a parry system. You could do a heavy punch, a flurry of kicks, and even use your relics as a long-range whip.
It turned into a real character action game for kids.
They also leaned hard into the co-op. Playing Knack 2 alone is fine, but playing it with someone else is where it shines. You can literally punch pieces of yourself into your partner to create a projectile attack. It’s this weirdly creative cooperative synergy that most AAA games just don't bother with anymore because it's hard to balance.
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The Cerny Legacy and the "Mascot" Problem
Sony has a history of trying to find its "Mario." They had Crash Bandicoot, then Jak and Daxter, then Sackboy. Knack was clearly an attempt to create a new face for the PS4 era. It didn't quite stick the landing in terms of cultural impact, but it represents a specific era of Japan Studio that we don't really have anymore.
Japan Studio was the heart of Sony's "weird" output. They made Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, and The Last Guardian. Knack was their attempt at a blockbuster family game.
People often forget that these games were built on the PhyreEngine. It’s an internal Sony toolset. The way the relics scatter when you take damage isn't just a canned animation; it’s a real-time calculation. This is why the frame rate used to chug on the original PS4 hardware—the math required to keep track of 5,000 individual cubes bouncing around a forest floor is actually insane.
Looking Back at the Reception
Was Knack a masterpiece? No. But the vitriol it received was always a little strange. If you go back and play it now, it’s a perfectly competent, gorgeous-looking platformer. It’s "B-tier" in a way that the industry has mostly moved away from. Nowadays, games are either $200 million mega-hits or $15 indie darlings. There isn't much room for the middle-of-the-road $40 experimental project.
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Knack 2 specifically addressed the "boring" complaints by adding platforming sections that actually required some thought. You had to shed your relics to fit through a door, fight a group of enemies as "Small Knack," and then recall your parts to crush a boss. It added a layer of puzzle-solving that the first game desperately lacked.
What You Can Do Now
If you actually want to experience these games, don't go in expecting Elden Ring. Go in expecting a Saturday morning cartoon.
- Play Knack 2 first: Honestly, you don't need the story of the first one. The second game is better in every conceivable way, from the frame rate to the move set.
- Turn on Co-op: These games were designed for a parent and a child or two friends on a couch. The "drop-in, drop-out" mechanic is seamless.
- Check the Used Bins: You can usually find physical copies of these for under ten bucks. At that price point, the "tech demo" charm of the relic physics is more than worth it.
- Watch the Digital Foundry breakdown: If you're a tech nerd, look up the analysis of how the relic physics work. It’ll make you appreciate what Cerny was trying to do with the hardware at the time.
The legacy of these games isn't found in a massive fan base or a Knack 3 announcement. It’s found in the hardware. The lessons Sony learned about data streaming and physics processing on the PS4 through Knack directly informed how they built the SSD architecture for the PS5. Every time you see a character in a modern game shatter into a thousand pieces without the console crashing, you’re seeing a little bit of Knack’s ghost in the machine.