Despite a recent push into live service and multiplayer games, Sony says it will continue to create the single-player games its best known for.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz about Sony's recent acquisition of Haven Studios, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst reaffirmed Sony's commitment to single-player games.
"Obviously we will always carry on making these single-player narrative-based games such as Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, and Horizon Forbidden West," Hulst told the publication. "But you've spotted correctly that we have invested in live service games, because that's incredibly exciting for us. It allows us to build larger worlds, it allows us to create really meaningful social connections between players."
Analysis: a major live service push
Haven Studios is the latest developer to be acquired by Sony as part of the company's push into the live service and multiplayer space. The most prominent acquisition was that of Destiny developer Bungie, which is working on a brand new multiplayer action game.
This new game from Bungie is one of 10 live service PlayStation games that Sony plans to release by 2026. While this slew of new games hasn't been confirmed, Hulst told GamesIndustry.biz that the company has "quite a few now in development or conceptualization".
We do know of quite a few multiplayer games Sony is working on right now. As mentioned above, we know Bungie is creating a new IP that's rumored to be called 'Matter', we also know that Marvel's Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games was hiring for a multiplayer project back in 2021, as was Ghost of Tsushima developer Sucker Punch, while Naughty Dog has been working on its "first standalone multiplayer", which is a spin-off of The Last of Us 2.
In addition, Sony has teamed up with Deviation Games, made up of ex-Treyarch devs, to work on a new IP (which we imagine will be a multiplayer shooter) and PlayStation and Firewalk Studios have a publishing partnership to develop a new multiplayer IP.
We also now know the recently acquired Haven Studios is working on a AAA multiplayer game that aims to "build a systemic and evolving world focused on freedom, thrill, and playfulness".
With all this focus on multiplayer, it's welcome news to hear Sony hasn't forgotten about its single-player experiences. Though it's unlikely the company would've thrown away its bread-and-butter in pursuit of new experiences, especially with PlayStation exclusives like God of War: Ragnarok, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and Wolverine in the pipeline.
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