Returnal Beginning of a “New Future” at Housemarque, Is the Game That “Allowed” Studio to Join Sony

by Alex Co June 16, 2024 4:46 pm in News
Returnal Update 3.000.005

While Housemarque has been around since 1995, it’s only back in 2021 when Sony acquired the studio to be part of PlayStation’s impressive stable of first-party developers. But did you know it’s because of Returnal why Housemarque was “allowed” to join Sony?

This was something shared by studio Creative Director Gregory Louden in a new video simply titled “Welcome to Housemarque,” where the dev also mentioned  how Returnal was the culmination of the studio’s past games, and marks the beginning of a “new future” at the studio.

I think the future of Housemarque is incredibly exciting.  I view Returnal as the culmination of Housemarque’s previous games, but also the beginning of a new future for Housemarque.

I think in a lot of ways there’s before Returnal and after Returnal, and Returnal is obviously the game that allowed us to join PlayStation Studios. They’ve supported us in every aspect, and also all the other PlayStation Studios have been so collaborative, welcoming, lots of knowledge sharing from both our side and from theirs.

Before Returnal, Housemarque launched Matterfall, Nex Machina, and Super Stardust  Ultra on PlayStation platforms. Returnal was released back in 2021 where it was received fairly well, and was the studio’s first third-person shooter that was as close to a AAA title the studio has produced so far.

While the studio’s “new future” (next game) isn’t known just yet, Sony has categorized it as a “single-player, narrative-driven focus” project. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about it soon.

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Alex Co

Father, gamer, games media vet, writer of words, killer of noobs.