Sony Interactive Entertainment has officially acquired Firewalk Studios, a developer comprised of several former Bungie employees. The studio has been developing an unannounced new AAA multiplayer game for PS5 and PC. According to Sony, Firewalk Studios will collaborate with Bungie and Haven Interactive Studios to further expand first-party live-service multiplayer games at PlayStation.
Firewalk Studios has become the 20th developer to join PlayStation Studios after previously announcing an exclusive publishing partnership with Sony back in April 2021. Led primarily by industry veterans such as Ryan Ellis and Tony Hsu, Firewalk Studios has quite a bit of experience in developing successful multiplayer games since several Bungie veterans also shifted to work at the studio when it opened in 2018.
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Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan praised Firewalk Studios for its expertise in creating multiplayer games and seemed confident that the developer’s upcoming PS5 exclusive will be a valuable addition to PlayStation Studios’ portfolio. Unfortunately, the acquisition cost has not been made public due to contractual agreements. Firewalk Studios currently employees around 150 employees and will work closely with PlayStation’s teams to develop its new AAA multiplayer game.
Sony has been hard at work acquiring studios to push into the live-service space and bolster PlayStation’s multiplayer offerings. However, Sony assures fans that its strong single-player experiences will not be impacted by this and will continue to roll them out across the generation. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is rumoured to release later this year and the PS5 exclusive Final Fantasy XVI is also coming in June, though more single-player projects are reportedly in development.
In February 2022, PlayStation said it planned to ship at least 10 live-service games by 2026. This may include Naughty Dog’s standalone multiplayer for The Last of Us as well as the unannounced projects currently in development at studios like Bungie and Haven Interactive.
Source: Business Wire
