Sony’s London studio is working on an ‘online co-op combat game’

28 October, 2022

Sony

Sony‘s London Studio has announced details of an “ambitious” new ‘online co-op combat game’ set in the English capital.

According to studio head Tara Saunders, the developer’s Soho studio is creating the as-yet-untitled game specifically for PlayStation 5.

She told SIE: “Our next project is an online co-op combat game, which as you can see here, is set in a modern fantasy London. The key thing about this is that it’s a PlayStation 5 title—it’s not a VR game like our last title was. And it’s our most ambitious project to date.

“There are some important aspects communicated in this image. It’s a modern fantasy London, it’s cooperative action. And what we really love about this project is that it’s giving us an opportunity to showcase a lot of wonder and magic. So we’re really excited.”

Her co-studio head Stuart Whyte added: “The original game idea resulted from an ideation process we did within the team. We created a thorough briefing document that gave high-level guidelines on the types of titles that we were looking for, but it was still very loose, and had a lot of room for creativity. Actually, it was akin to the process that Guerrilla used when they created Horizon Zero Dawn, which inspired us to use a very similar process.

“So we put this process out there and over a period of months, the team came up with about 60 or so different ideas which we refined, and then refined again. Eventually we were able to finalise the decision, which is exactly what Tara just described.”

White added: “There was so much variation in the many concepts we discussed, but for us it was about creating something that the team as a whole was really passionate about. We did a lot of surveys with the team about what ideas they were drawn to the most, and also which ideas the wider PlayStation Studios leadership team felt most passionate about.

“We reached out to some sister studios for their input, and finally, we actually did some proper market research. We polled hundreds of gamers in the UK and the US for their feedback as well—and all of these different inputs and perspectives all culminated in the project we’re working on now.”

Elsewhere at Sony, it was revealed last week that the Call Of Duty franchise won’t be coming to Xbox Game Pass for “a number of years” due to Sony‘s ongoing deal.

Earlier this year, it was announced that Microsoft had acquired Activision Blizzard in a deal that is estimated to cost around £50billion ($68billion USD). Although the deal has not been completed at this time, Microsoft is now working to seek approval from national regulators and has already been accepted in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has voiced concerns that the company’s acquisition of the Overwatch and World Of Warcraft company may “harm rivals” and “damage competition.”

The post Sony’s London studio is working on an ‘online co-op combat game’ appeared first on NME.