Following the acquisition by Sony, developer Housemarque wants to create something bigger and more ambitious for the PlayStation brand.
Housemarque is a studio responsible for the likes of Super Stardust HD, Resogun, and more recently the PS5 exclusive, Returnal. It was certainly a purchase that caught some by surprise but at the same time, it made perfect sense for Sony to make the deal.
While Housemarque has developed games for the likes of PC and Xbox, the Finnish studio arguably became more known for the fantastic side-scrolling shooter, Resogun which released for PS4 and PS Vita in 2013.
This year Housemarque released Return for the PlayStation 5. In it, you play as Selene Vassos, an explorer that crashes onto an alien planet with little memory of how she got there. Returnal is a third-person “3D Bullet-Hell Shooter” in which when a player dies the story essentially resets. Yet every time the story resets, the world changes.
Returnal is also quite unnerving in its own unique way. It certainly adds a different twist on the “roguelike” genre. It’s quite a difficult game to explain, so you should just go and play it.
Returnal is no doubt Housemarque’s most ambitious game to date, and now that they have the financial backing of Sony, it opens a new world of possibilities for the talented studio.
In recent years, Housemarque has made so many games for the PlayStation brand already, it would be reasonable to assume that they might already be a Sony-owned studio.
Housemarque has big plans!
During an interview with GQ, the question was asked: “You mentioned Housemarque has already been making games for Sony for a long time, Ilari. Why fully join PlayStation Studios now?” Housemarque co-founder Ilari Kuittinen replied:
“Well, recently we started to do something bigger, something more ambitious and we had a lot of collaboration with various studio teams as well.
“The results were great and that started to bring some ideas of what the future might look like. What if we could get even closer together and be even more ambitious?”
Following up on Housemarque’s answer, GQ then asked: “So from your perspective you want to keep doing bigger things and Sony will enable you to do that?”
Kuittinen responded: “That’s certainly the right conclusion there. I think Sony is the partner that’s best positioned to help develop even further. Let’s face it, these are some of the best game developers in the world. So we’re really proud to be part of that group and hope to collaborate and learn from them.”
As a fan of Housemarque for a number of years, I can’t wait to see what the future now holds for the studio.
What kind of game would you like to see Housemarque create next? Let us know across our social media channels.
Not played Returnal yet? You can pick it up from the GameByte Shop.
Featured Image Credit: Sony