Sony has announced that Firesprite has joined the PlayStation Studios family as its 14th studio. Firesprite is the third studio that the company has purchased this year following Housemarque, developer of PS5-exclusive Returnal, and Nixxes, a Dutch studio specializing in porting games to PC.
Based in the UK, Firesprite is a developer that’s known for collaborating with Japan Studio on The Playroom and The Playroom VR augmented reality mini-games, which released for the PS4 and PS VR, respectively. The studio’s most recent project is The Persistence, a horror shooter that was originally designed for PS VR but later ported to the PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch platforms.
Firesprite has an interesting history in that the studio was formed in 2012 by ex-members of Studio Liverpool (Psygnosis). This is the legendary studio that was behind the futuristic racing series, Wipeout, as well as other great PlayStation franchises such as Colony Wars and Destruction Derby.
Graeme Ankers, managing director of Firesprite, confirmed the acquisition with a letter elaborating on the studio’s positive history with Sony. Firesprite’s latest project could be revealed soon.
Today is an incredibly exciting day for Firesprite as we join PlayStation Studios with the backing of Hermen and the entire PlayStation Family. We are very much looking forward to the next part of our journey!
Firesprite, headquartered in Liverpool in the North-West of the UK, was founded in 2012 with the vision of creating games that bring new innovations to any experience we develop. The North-West is steeped in gaming history, producing many iconic developers, publishers and games such as WipEout. Many of our ‘Sprites developed and shaped titles from this era and we are very proud of those roots!
We’ve had the pleasure of working with many talented developers and publishers across the industry and PlayStation in particular has been a friend and co-development partner for the best part of a decade, collaborating together on many exciting projects including The PlayRoom, Run Sackboy! Run and The PlayRoom VR.
PlayStation also gave us the opportunity to create our own IP, The Persistence, and we were given the creative freedom to explore, innovate, and release a survival horror game we are immensely proud of. Now, as a first party studio, we know we have the full support of PlayStation in furthering our heritage of combining creativity and technical innovation to offer some truly unique experiences for PlayStation fans.
I firstly want to thank PlayStation and their community for the warm welcome into a family of incredible creators. I’d also like to thank all of our ‘Sprites, past and present, who have helped shape the Firesprite we see today. I’m proud of the talent we have at Firesprite and you’ll continue to hear and see more from us all very soon!
We can’t wait to show you what we have been working on……we’re just getting started!
Source: PlayStation