Sony has now enlisted PlayStation London, an off-beat studio that's worked on oddballs like EyeToy and Wonderbook, to support its live service ambitions with a co-op online game for PS5.
Heads from the studio discussed the currently untitled game, which is fittingly set in fantasy London, in a new GamesIndustry report. "Even though we're not working on something that uses all different bits of peripherals, it is still about taking that DNA of innovation and putting it into any game concept," co-studio head Tara Saunders says.
Ironically, the fact that PlayStation London is working on, for lack of a better word, a normal video game – one not explicitly anchored to a gimmick or gizmo of some kind – is a big change of pace for the studio. However, Saunders says "it is our most ambitious game to-date. We're going to take all of that innovation DNA and apply that into this online co-op combat game."
Co-studio head Stuart Whyte says the idea for the game was partly inspired by talks with Horizon Forbidden West developer Guerrilla Games, which is also part of Sony's PlayStation Studios. "We were fascinated about how they went from Killzone to Horizon: Zero Dawn, and this was the exact process they went through," Whyte says.
PlayStation London is keeping finer details on its next project close to its chest for now; all we have to go on visually is the concept art above. But Whyte did confirm it will use the studio's in-house Soho Engine "built from the ground up" to "take full advantage of the PS5." The online, co-op nature of this game also puts it in the stable of live service titles that Sony is looking to build out in parallel to the single-player epics that PlayStation is known for.
PlayStation is looking to launch two live service games this year alone, and it's got God of War support studio Jetpack Interactive turning a "flagship IP" into a live service game.
Most first-party PlayStation games will remain console exclusive for at least a year after their launch, but Sony is considering multiplatform launches for its live service games.
