Housemarque's Saros Wouldn't Have Been Possible Before Sony Acquisition - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 20 March 2025 / 2,796 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Returnal developer and long-time PlayStation partner Housemarque in June 2021.
The studio announced last month the third-person action game, Saros, for the PlayStation 5, which will launch in 2026.
Housemarque CEO CEO and co-founder Ilari Kuittinen in an interview with Finnish publication Helsingin Sanomat (via VideoGamesChronicle) discussed that being acquired by PlayStation has made it possible for the studio to developer bigger budget games.
The publication stated the budget of Saros "can be compared to Remedy's Alan Wake 2, which has an estimated development and marketing budget of around €70 million… the most expensive cultural production in Finland to date."
Kuittinen revealed Saros has been in development since 2022 and that "you couldn't have made such investments as an independent studio."
Housemarque before being acquired took on a variety of smaller projects in order to stay in business.
"On every sales and conference trip, you wondered if this was the company's last outing," Kuittinen said. "The difficult times were made easier by the fact that we were constantly negotiating new projects, so there was always a light at the end of the tunnel."
Kuittinen added, "We had the feeling that it was better to try to get into a big family than to stay independent for the next few years. We thought we had to do the deal now."
"The sale seemed like the best solution for everyone," Kuittinen explained. "And this has been a long stretch of life."
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 Bluesky.
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Kinda crazy to think these guys are coming from Resogun.
Can't wait for the sequel. First game was such an amazing experience.
This is what I wanted to see MS doing... Not buying the publisher of 70m selling games like Skyrim and COD
They have done that. They have done both.
What you are saying Xbox is not doing, they are actually doing, maybe more than Sony.
I just want another game like Nex Machina/Resogun. I know what they said but if they get big enough maybe a smaller team on the side can make those again. PLEASE!
Added benefits for smaller studios to get investment can go a long way, we have seen how certain studios seem to thrive from just working with 3rd party publishers and how some get a lot of benefits from being owned by a bigger corporation. Obsidian as well has shown this as in the end, they have ability to get their hands on resources probably not available to them (or at a massively higher budget) than they normally would.
Yet, what I took from this... " and marketing budget of around €70 million… the most expensive cultural production in Finland to date." As in the most expensive piece of media ever produced, that's quite the feat.
Bear in mind that the population of Finland is less than New York City
For sure but it's a great sign to show talent can come from any nation and it's not only Montreal with their tax incentives. :P
The benefit of smaller studios being picked up and given more to work with. Returnal is still the only great first party PS5 game this gen imho. Hope the “sequel” is even better.
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