Firesprite's new PlayStation exclusive project teased

By Kes Eylers-Stephenson,

Sony has just purchased a new team for PlayStation Studios called Firesprite. The head of the said division, Hermen Hulst, and managing director of Firesprite, Graeme Ankers have been doing the rounds in the press, and we now have a better idea of what the studio will make.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Hermen Hulst said that Firesprite has "a great foundation for us to collaborate on the few great exclusive game projects that we're working on together."

"They already have some strong ties with certain first-party studios, but I want to be clear that we want them to lead the development of several game projects, rather than helping other teams out, even though they have to collaborated with us before [on The Persistence and the Team Asobi co-developed Playroom VR]. As Firesprite has grown and evolved, we think that this is a role that it's now ready for, which is developing exclusive games for PlayStation Studios."

The article notes that Firesprite had job listings looking for talent to build a "game-changing huge multiplayer shooter and an ambitious dark narrative blockbuster adventure," as the teams next efforts will be outside of PlayStation Studios' "core offerings." This probably — hopefully — means it won't be a third-person action-adventure, but Hulst later confirms it isn't necessarily a VR game the studio is targeting.

"Ideally [the games] are aligned with the culture and what the teams are good at. It is definitely true that Firesprite is a team that loves to tinker with a platform," Hulst explained to the interviewer. "The experiences that you can expect [from Firesprite] will be quite different from the teams that you are familiar with at PlayStation Studios. And I like that. I think that our audiences, our community, deserves very rich and very different experiences. At the end of the day, that's what makes us stronger."

Ankers added to the conversation, saying that "I'd love to be able to talk about [our games] at some point soon. They will be beautiful, amazing universes that players are going to enjoy for years to come, but we can't talk specifically about what those are or what genre they are in."

Great to see that Hermen and the team are trying to diversify the exclusive PlayStation offerings and that Ankers and the Firesprite team seam keyed into what the portfolio needs! Are you excited to see what Firespite make? Let us know in the comments!

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Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor-in-Chief Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and Sony news. He writes about PS5 games like The Witcher IV, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Kingdom Come Deliverance II using experience from years of PlayStation gaming. He also covers PS Plus news and some of the best PS5 games — Uncharted, God of War, and The Last of Us — before an evening swim.