PlayStation's London Studio heads, Stuart Whyte and Tara Saunders, standing side by side

PlayStation's London Studio Announces Online Co-Op Combat Game

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Published: October 27, 2022 3:31 PM

PlayStation's London Studio has decided to halt its VR endeavors to take on a new challenge; a fantasy online co-op live service combat game set in a modern-day fantasy version of London. 

Out of all the other PlayStation Studios, the London branch is the more adventurous space, as they have worked on creating games for VR, EyeToy, and bringing new technologies to the company. Their latest experiment is a fantasy combat game that they say will be their "most ambitious project to date." The upcoming project is going to be a live service game, which seems to be Sony's focus, as they have announced they have a bunch of live service games in development.  

PlayStation's London Studio Concept Art for their upcoming project, a fantasy online combat game set in Modern fantasy London

That being said, this new idea did not just come to the team overnight. Studio Heads Stuart Whyte and Tara Saunders told the SIE blog, during an interview on Sony Spotlight, that this was an idea that was brought up, refined, refined again, and heavily researched and changed based upon the surveys taken by the entire London team. Saunders and Whyte stated that,

"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."

The London Studio heads even went as far as to reach out to their sister studios for more input and insight, as well as doing thorough market research to ensure the success of this new large project. Hundreds of gamers across the globe were paneled, and all of that feedback was thrown into one big melting pot that molded the project they are working on as we speak. 

On the other hand, one might wonder why they are leaving behind VR, as the studio is known for pushing technical boundaries and ideas. This would seem to leave a gap in the upcoming PSVR 2 lineup of developers, but Sony seems to have filled that gap by taking on new acquisitions to expand its horizons. 

While there are very few details surrounding this project at this time, the concept art showcased during the interview shows a lot of promise, and we look forward to seeing this project unfold and unravel for the world to see. 

Samantha Plaisance Gaming Writer
| Former Staff Writer

Samantha is an experienced Freelance Gaming Writer with a deep passion for all things gaming. At a young age, she was introduced to the wonderful world of… More about Samantha