Insomniac Games joins the likes of Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch Productions and Guerrilla Games on the roster of first-party PlayStation studios.
The narrative of the current console generation has been split. PlayStation has had the “better” exclusives, says the narrative, while Xbox has – after a stumbling start – the “better” services, like backwards compatibility and Xbox Game Pass. The Xbox One X is also the more powerful of the mid-generation console upgrades, but Xbox has still struggled for exclusives.
In order to redress this balance, Microsoft has been on a spending spree, adding studios to the Xbox Game Studios banner left, right and centre. Undead Labs. Playground Games. Ninja Theory. Compulsion Games. InXile. Obsidian. Double Fine.
Sony, meanwhile, has been quiet on the acquisition front. Well, until today, and this is a big one: Insomniac Games is joining PlayStation Worldwide Studios.
The announcement was made, live on stage, during the Gamescom Opening Night Live conference. Shortly after the announcement, Insomniac Games’ creative director, Bryan Intihar, tweeted about the acquisition:
Absolutely thrilled to join the Sony family!!! What a day!!! https://t.co/pFkQJFe2nz
— Bryan Intihar (@bryanintihar) August 19, 2019
He’s happy, then. But what does Sony’s acquisition of Insomniac Games mean for fans, in real terms?
For PlayStation fans, probably not a great deal. After the massive success of Insomniac’s Spider-Man, a sequel seemed inevitable. Now that Insomniac is a first-party PlayStation studio, it’s absolutely nailed on.
But outside of Spider-Man (and a few other titles, like Ratchet and Clank), Insomniac also develops VR games. Thus far, however, none of these VR games have actually been available for the PSVR on PS4. Instead, you’ll have found them on PC, Oculus, and even the Magic Leap. It remains to be seen what impact this will have on Insomniac’s VR ambitions, as the upcoming Stormland – developed by Insomniac but published by Oculus, as an Oculus exclusive – is looking impressive.
What you probably can be certain of, though, is that there won’t be a sequel to 2014’s Sunset Overdrive. That was published by Microsoft Studios, originally on Xbox One but later for Windows PC.
