PlayStation London Studio Developing Online Co-op Combat Game Set in Fantasy London for PS5 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 October 2022 / 1,652 Views
PlayStation's London Studio in an interview with GamesIndustry revealed the studio is working on an untitled online cooperative combat game set in a fantasy London for the PlayStation 5.
"We are proud of the history and innovation that we've done over the years, supporting all sorts of PlayStation technology, whether that's VR, or AR, or microphones, or whatever," said co-studio head Stuart Whyte.
"With this project, we really wanted to explore some new avenues and set ourselves some new challenges. We definitely wanted to try something a little bit different, and I think this new project really channels our 'brave' value and allows us to push ourselves on the 'curious' front, too. It's an exciting future, it really is.
"Innovation is always going to be at the heart of what we do. If you look at our heritage and the titles we've done, there are a lot of firsts in there. And that will continue."
Co-studio head Tara Saunders added, "What's great about that heritage is the problem-solving aspect. We have taken different technologies and looked at how we shift the games industry and come up with concepts that haven't been done before. That heritage means the team is comfortable throwing themselves outside of their comfort zone.
"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."
Saunders added it is their "ambitious game to-date" and they are "going to take all of that innovation DNA and apply that into this online co-op combat game.
"[In our concept art] you're seeing a take on a modern fantasy London. Our overarching theme is about bringing fantastical and magical elements and intersecting that with familiar worlds, and you don't get much more familiar to us than London."
Whyte added, "The game idea came out of an ideation process that we embarked on with the entire team. We created a high-level briefing document, but with a lot of latitude and scope within that. And the team came up with loads and loads of ideas. We got the inspiration on the process by talking to our colleagues at Guerrilla Games. We were fascinated about how they went from Killzone to Horizon: Zero Dawn, and this was the exact process they went through.
"So the team came up with a load of ideas over a period of months, and we refined them down and refined them down, until we got to a really small shortlist. Then we went out and spoke to PlayStation leadership, we spoke to other PlayStation studios… We spoke, very importantly, to our team about which one they're most passionate about. This concept scored super highly in all of those areas. We polled hundreds of gamers in the UK and US, through an anonymous poll, with some of the shortlisted ideas… This was the one that came up top."
While the game isn't a virtual reality title, Whyte said the game uses some of the tools from its VR days.
"Our Soho Engine, our in-house game engine, is at the heart of what we're doing here," he said. "This is an engine that was built from the ground-up for this generation of hardware and the needs of the game that we're making. It's designed to take full advantage of the PS5. But it's fair to say that some of the toolset that we're using dates back to the VR Worlds and Blood & Truth tech that we had on PS4. Because at the end of the day, VR games need to have super-efficient pipelines and engines."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Weird way to announce a project but I'm interested
Well it beats announcing a date of an announcement of a project :P
This is intriguing. I very rarely get into multiplayer, but I would love to have a good coop game. I feel like London Studio is quickly growing in quality, and I predict this or their next game will serve as their breakout hit that puts them on the map. This is a phenomenon you see pretty consistently with PlayStation studios—ND with Uncharted DF, Guerrilla with HZD, Sucker Punch with GoT, SSM with GoW 2018, Insomniac with Spider-Man ps4 (and looking like a step even further with SM2 and Wolverine), etc.
I hope whatever magic PlayStation’s management has had up to this point with fostering studios from decent to top-tier studios is never lost. Jim Ryan has the potential to eff up the PS magic for the sake of higher profitability; hopefully, it never comes to pass.
This is going to be amazing!
Sony studios got their heads together and will release products left right and center!
Cannot wait for what the future holds haha!
i was hoping they was working on a new Getaway game
