Today Sony announced the acquisition of the Finnish studio Housemarque, developers of Returnal. However, the Japanese PlayStation division mistakenly mentioned Bluepoint Games, the creators of the Demon’s Souls remake, in the announcement. It seems that the Japanese company was planning to announce the purchase of this studio soon.On June 29, Herman Hulst, head of PlayStation Worldwide Studios, announced the acquisition of Housemarque on the PlayStation blog.
Now the company has officially become Sony’s internal studio.
According to Hulst, the release of Returnal proved that Finnish developers have a unique vision and can create memorable games that resonate with the community. However, it is not yet known what projects Housemarque will do next.
Studio co-founder Ilari Kuittinen noted that the team will continue to create gameplay-oriented games, and will also experiment with storytelling methods.
Housemarque is the oldest gaming studio in Finland, which was founded in 1995. She started her collaboration with PlayStation with the game Super Stardust HD for PS3. Before the big-budget Returnal, developers released a number of niche projects, including Resogun, Nex Machina and Dead Nation.
The Finnish studio was also congratulated on Twitter by PlayStation Japan. However, the picture attached to the post had the Bluepoint Games logo, and in the background was art from last year’s remake of Demon’s Souls. This image was not in the official announcement.
The tweet was immediately deleted, but its screenshot was posted on the ResetEra forum. Obviously, PlayStation Japan published the image by mistake, because soon after, a post appeared on the account
with the correct picture with the Housemarque logo. Sony may have planned to announce this deal later.
『Returnal』の開発スタジオHousemarqueがソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメントの一員に！
PlayStation Studiosのメンバーとして、皆さんにより多くの思い出と刺激的なタイトルをお届けしていきます。詳しくはこちら⇒ https://t.co/cn5axBBoCC pic.twitter.com/QQtMv3muRK
— プレイステーション公式 (@PlayStation_jp) June 29, 2021
She is known primarily for creating remasters and remakes of PlayStation exclusives. The developers’ portfolio includes games such as Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, God of War Collection, as well as remakes of Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls.