PlayStation Lists Housemarque in “Single-Player, Narrative-Driven Focus”; Bend Studio in “Evolving, Multi-Genre” Categories for In-Development Projects

While Sony hasn’t revealed what some of its first-party studios like Housemarque is cooking currently, the company has revealed what focus they’re aiming for at the very least.

During Sony’s business segment presentation, the company presented some of its world class studios it has making games. Interestingly enough, Housemarque, the studio known for games like Returnal, Nex Machina and the like, fall under “Single-Player, Narrative-Driven Focus.”

Housemarque is joined by Santa Monica Studio, Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch Productions, whom are all known to deliver deep, narrative-driven single-player titles.

Another interesting thing to note there is Bend Studio, the developer of Days Gone, is listed under the “Evolving/Multi-Genre” category. Unless I’m very much mistaken, Days Gone has no “evolving” portion, nor is it it multi-genre. Joining Bend is Media Molecule who fits that bill perfectly with Dreams, which is the studio’s last released title back in 2020. Note that Guerrilla Games is also listed under the same category, which falls in line given the studio is confirmed to be working on a Horizon online game.

Based on the presentation, Sony makes a clear distinction between a live-service game from one that is multi-genre that evolves. Joining Bungie (Destiny, Marathon) is Haven with their in-development project Fairgames. For those wondering who Neon Koi is, it’s a German-Finnish game company that was originally called Savage Game Studios, and was acquired by Sony in 2022, and focuses on mobile gaming.

Rounding out the lot is Nixxes Software and Bluepoint Games, which are both listed under “Partner Studios.” Both Nixxes Software and Bluepoint Games were acquired back in 2021, and while Nixxes has recently released Ghost of Tsushma: Director’s Cut on PC, there’s no news yet on what Bluepoint is doing, unless it’s more support work for other Sony first-party studios, much like what the studio did with God of War Ragnarok.

Let’s hope that this means we’ll be getting news on what Housemarque is doing, as well as what Bend Studio has been up to given Days Gone was released way back in 2019. Perhaps we’ll see both studios surface in today’s State of Play presentation? One can hope, right?

In the same business presentation, PlayStation co-CEO Hermen Hulst confirmed that while PlayStation live-service games will be released day and date on both PC and consoles, don’t expect that to happen for single-player, narrative-driven games.

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