Returnal Devs Join PlayStation Studios
Herman Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, announced that Housemarque, the studio responsible for Returnal, has joined Sony's in-house teams. What's interesting, initially the Japanese version of this announcement was accompanied by a graphic according to which not Housemarque but Bluepoint Games was acquired.
The PlayStation Studios family, Sony's in-house game development teams that primarily create games for PlayStation consoles, includes iconic brands such as Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Guerrilla Games, Polyphony Digital and Guerrilla Games. Today, the group officially welcomed another team. It's Finnish studio Housemarque. You may know the studio from the recent Returnal, as well as Matterfall, Dead Nation or the Super Stardust series.
This comes as no surprise. For a long time now, Housemarque has been focusing primarily on making games for PlayStation consoles. Over the last ten years, only two of their works have been released outside of Sony's platforms - Nex Machina: Death Machine and Outland.
The news of Housemarque joining PlayStation Studios provided an opportunity for both parties to pay each other compliments. Here's what Ilari Kuittinen, co-founder of the Finnish studio had to say:
"We are so excited to finally join the PlayStation Studios family! This gives our studio a clear future and a stable opportunity to continue delivering on gameplay centric approaches, while still experimenting with new methods of narrative delivery and pushing the boundaries of this modern artform. Locally here in Helsinki, this also means that we will officially expand the PlayStation family to a growing industry hub and secure the legacy of the oldest game studio in Finland.
Finally, what this means for our fans? We at Housemarque are gamers, and we have grown from the need to perfect and tinker with facets of games that we have found most fascinating. We are also not known for shying away from running our own course and trying out new combinations. With the backing of SIE and its family of studios supporting us, we can truly grow into our place in the industry and show what Housemarque can create with no limitations. We can’t wait to show everyone what will be in store in the upcoming years, and we hope to usher in more lasting memories and exhilarating titles for the next quarter century and beyond."
There's one more piece of news surrounding the Housemarque acquisition. As reported by the well-known and well-liked Nibel, initially, the Japanese version of the announcement was accompanied by a graphic saying that Bluepoint Games had joined PlayStation Studos, the team responsible for, among others, refreshed versions of the first three installments of the Uncharted series or the remake of Demon's Souls (you can see it above). So is another announcement inbound? We can only wait patiently.
