Sony closes London Studio that created two legendary PSVR titles
Sony has announced a wave of layoffs at Playstation Studios. Among those affected are many VR talents.
Sony is laying off approximately 900 employees inside and outside of the Playstation Studios. Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerilla Games and Firesprite will be affected, and London Studio will be closed completely.
"We looked at our studios and our portfolio, evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward," writes Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst in a press release. "Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan."
The layoffs are not an isolated incident, but part of a larger shift in the gaming industry. According to industry analyst Matthew Ball, nearly 25,000 people have lost their jobs in the gaming industry since 2022, and more than 7,000 in the first two months of this year alone.
Sony loses VR veterans
Among the studios impacted are two with a great deal of VR expertise. Firesprite developed the VR game The Persistence and worked with Guerilla Games on the PSVR 2 exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain. Sony acquired the studio in 2021.
London studio was a major contributor to the first Playstation VR. It developed Playstation VR Worlds and the gangster epic Blood & Truth, which was one of the biggest exclusive VR games for the system. At the end of 2022, the London studio was said to be working on an ambitious live service title that wasn't developed with VR support in mind.
So the studio's closure probably has nothing to do with virtual reality or the Playstation VR 2, which recently celebrated its first birthday and will get some form of PC VR support later this year.
We can only hope that the VR talent coming out of Firesprite and London Studio will go on to work for VR studios and thus stay in VR.
Note: Links to online stores in articles can be so-called affiliate links. If you buy through this link, MIXED receives a commission from the provider. For you the price does not change.
