Back in June at this year’s Summer Games Fest, Enhance announced their latest project, Lumines Arise. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lumines franchise, let me give you a brief overview. The franchise’s first release was all the way back in 2004. When Tetsuya Mizuguchi heard about the PSP, he was intrigued by the technology, once calling it an “interactive walkman.” He wanted to make a game for it, came up with a concept, and Lumines: Puzzle Fusion was born.
Similar to Tetris, Lumines is a block-dropping puzzle game, but instead of varying shapes, you’re dealing with 2×2 blocks with two different colors. The goal is to create as many 2×2 squares of the same color as possible to eliminate them from the playing field as the vertical time bar crosses the screen. The playing field is divided into 16 columns; in the original Lumines, songs would have to follow the 4/4 time signature for them to work with the game’s mechanics and technical specifications. Whether or not this is still the case for Lumines Arise, I’m unsure (I have reached out to Enhance’s PR for comment; as I myself retired from music long ago).
Lumines has always been a much more stressful game to me than Tetris. It is not a game I play to relax. It has always been something I picked up and played for a challenge and to get my heart racing. Lumines Arise wants to change that and offer players a variety of options to create a unique experience for everyone. I originally wanted to title this preview “everyone’s favorite stressful puzzle game is back,” but it doesn’t need to be stressful.
The developers are pretty aware of how stressful Lumines can be, offering three types of “No-Stress Lumines” for players to choose from. Type 1 allows the player to have full control of the blocks falling, meaning they do not fall automatically. Type 2 doesn’t allow the game to end, and just clears the playfield, and the third type combines the two. So if you want full control of the blocks falling and never want to see the dreaded “game over” screen, the game now gives you that choice.
The game comes with plenty of other accessibility options right off the bat, including colorblind support, camera distance (this is especially handy if you’re on a device like PS Portal or Steam Deck), background transparency, and background motion. I applaud Enhance for including all of these things to be inclusive of everyone who may have obstacles playing the game.
Arise takes elements from both Tetris Effect and Humanity (I’ll get to that) to make Lumines a wild experience like it’s never been before. Similar to Tetris Effect’s Zone mechanic, Lumines Aries has a Burst mechanic. One of the two colors won’t clear for a short amount of time, allowing you to create insane chains and potentially give yourself a clean start once the Burst sequence is over.
Much like Humanity and unlike its predecessors, Lumines Arise is making a big focus on community and multiplayer. There are multiple modes for multiplayer, as well as a weekly weekend Loomii-Live event that encourages players to team up and hit certain goals to obtain special avatar customization items. Loomii is the in-game currency that can be used to buy avatar customization items in the Loomii-Pon area, which is very similar to the claw machine in Astro Bot, offering a variety of different ways to customize your avatar and profile.
The true cherry on top for Lumines Arise is that Hydelic, the artist behind the soundtracks for Tetris Effect: Connected and Rez Infinite (Area X) is coming back to do the entire soundtrack for Lumines Arise. You can stream two singles from the soundtrack on major streaming platforms now: “Only Human” featuring Krysta Youngs and “Dreamland.”
Lumines Arise is set to release on November 11th, 2025, on PlayStation 5 and PC. Based on what I’ve seen and played so far, I’m very eager to do a deep dive into the final product when it releases.
This preview was done with a PC product key provided by Enhance.
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