Sony now has a grand total of 20 first party developers, although you’ve almost certainly never heard of the new one: Firewalk Studios.
As much as Sony has tried to prevent Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it can’t pretend that it doesn’t also buy up other companies as well. However, its purchases are usually much smaller, and limited to developers – not giant-sized publishers.
The biggest studio they’ve bought so far is Destiny 2 maker Bungie, who they claim will not be used to make new exclusives but to instead help with their plans for multiple new live service titles.
New purchase Firewalk Studios will be different though, as they were already working on an unannounced ‘AAA multiplayer game’ for Sony and apparently they’re so pleased with how things are going that they’ve decided to buy the company.
Firewalk Studios hasn’t released a completed game yet and while they’re part of the ProbablyMonsters group, founded by Bungie veteran Harold Ryan, they haven’t finished anything yet either.
However, the Bungie connections of everyone involved make it fairly easy to guess what kind of game this unannounced title might be, and it seems an obvious assumption that it’s going to be a live service title.
The game is being headed up by former Destiny creative director Ryan Ellis but it’s implied Sony will also be using Firewalk to help out with their other live service games, just as Bungie already is.
‘Since announcing our publishing partnership with ProbablyMonsters and Firewalk in 2021, we continue to be impressed by the team’s ambitions to build a modern multiplayer game that connects players in new and innovative ways,’ said PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst on the PlayStation Blog.
‘The studio shares our passion for creating inspiring worlds grounded in exceptional gameplay, and we want to continue to invest in their mission. We’re excited for Firewalk to bring their technical and creative expertise to PlayStation Studios to help grow our live service operations and deliver something truly special for gamers.’
Despite all the live service games Sony wants to make, with several expected this year, they still haven’t actually announced any, even if The Last Of Us multiplayer game is assumed to be one of them.
The Horizon multiplayer game is probably another, and it’s likely that the majority of new titles in development at Sony’s 20 different first party studios are also live service games.
That’s a major change of direction, especially given that live service titles (i.e. games that never end and get constant updates, like Destiny or Fortnite) don’t seem quite the dead cert now that they probably did three or four years ago, when Sony must have first started drawing up these plans.
Hopefully we’ll get a proper look at what they’re working on this summer, with their next big showcase, but whether that will include Firewalk’s new game is impossible to tell at the moment.
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