Sony is growing once again and proves that it really has ambitions to become a gaming giant! Housemarque, the creator of the still fresh Returnal, has just joined the still growing group of PlayStation Studios .
The takeover of the developer was announced on Tuesday, when the official news about it appeared on the PlayStation blog. It was also accompanied by a commentary by Ilarego Kuittinen himself, co-founder and managing director of Housemarque. As he said:
We are very excited to finally join the PlayStation family. This gives our studio hope for a bright future and a solid opportunity to continue delivering gameplay-focused products while experimenting with storytelling techniques and pushing the boundaries of this modern art form.
On this occasion, he also mentioned Returnal (2021), a third-person action game that brought the studio the greatest publicity and was probably the first moment of contact with the work of the Finnish developer for many players.
However, it was not his debut. Housemarque has already created Dead Nation and Matterfall before. Part of Returnal’s success may undoubtedly be due to the fact that it was an exclusive production on PlayStation 5 at a time when many other titles were still available on the previous generation consoles. Housemarque’s work also fully exploited the technological potential of the new Sony product, for example through the DualSense controller.
No wonder that many fans are wondering about the future of Returnal . Unfortunately, for now its creators are focusing on improving the game mechanics, so nothing is known about potential major updates or DLC enriching the basic gameplay.
The acquisition means for Housemarque to join a ranks of other famous creators such as Naughty Dog, Santa Monica Studio and Sucker Punch Productions. But whether this move will benefit the team behind Returnal remains to be seen for some time.