Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced yet another studio acquisition - Bluepoint Games, the developers of the Shadow of the Colossus remake on PS4, and, most recently, the PS5 remake of Demon's Souls.
Bluepoint and PlayStation have worked closely together for years, but the news comes after the studio's latest successful release, as Sony confirmed Demon's Souls has sold more than 1.4 million copies since release. IGN spoke with PlayStation Studios Head Hermen Hulst and Bluepoint President Marco Thrush to learn more about the acquisition, PlayStation's overall studio strategy, and about how, thoughBluepoint is steeped in PlayStation remaster and remake expertise, it wants to explore original ideas.
Bluepoint Wants to Make Original Games
Demon's Souls was only released last November, and while Bluepoint isn't officially announcing its next game, Thrush explained that the studio is aiming to work on original content going forward. No exact details about what the "original content" Bluepoint is working on will be, so it remains unclear if it is a new game that is part of an existing IP, or something new entirely.
"Our next project, we're working on original content right now. We can't talk about what that is, but that's the next step in the evolution for us," Thrush said, noting that, even with remakes like Shadow and Souls, the studio was already partially creating original content. He explained how, really, the growth of the studio, both in the literal number of employees as well as types of projects, naturally leads to this next step, especially given the team's pedigree.
"The transition from remasters to remakes was to test ourselves and push ourselves harder for the next step," Thrush said, noting the team was at about 15 people during the production of the original God of War collection, right now is at about 70 employees, and grew to 95 people at its peak during Demon's Souls (with outsourcing work, too).
"Our team is a very highly experienced team, the average experience among most people is about 15 years, and all of them come from original development. It's not like we're a bunch of developers that got trained up on making remasters and remakes. We have that original game development mindset in our hearts, and that's what we're now ready, finally ready with the support of Sony to push forward and show what we can do, and show what PlayStation can do," he said.
And though the potential is exciting for Bluepoint to be tackling its own game, don't expect to see it too quickly. The studio has had a surprisingly quick turnaround on its games, having worked on five PlayStation remasters or remaster collections and several ports over the last decade, while moving from remasters in 2015 to Shadow in 2018, and then Demon's Souls in 2020.
"When we're working on a remaster, on a remake, we're very, very fortunate and that we basically, the original team finishes the game, we get handed that game, and then we got to polish it for a few years," Thrush said, noting that that "polish" is, of course, a lot of work and original art and design in its own right.
"You're starting out with the blueprint, right? True original development, there's a blueprint, you execute on it, and then it's not fun and you throw it away and you start over. So yes, by definition, my default answer is going to be original development, of course, takes longer. It has to, otherwise, you wouldn't make a good game."
And given PlayStation's recent commitments to being willing to delay games to let teams achieve their vision on a reasonable schedule, Hulst says that will be true for whatever Bluepoint and Sony's various other studios make.
"It's always about making quality games in a way that's sustainable for the teams, for the individuals on the teams. Because obviously when we acquired team like Bluepoint, this is a long-term play for us, right? We're not in it to get some quick results," Hulst said, explaining that, in short, recent delays of games like Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok
aren't cause for concern.
"We're very happy actually with development progress that I feel good about the decision that we made there [with Horizon and God of War]. And it's very much the mindset that it's people first. We are a people business. Everything we do is about the developers, their health, their creativity, their wellbeing."
Why PlayStation Acquired Bluepoint, and Why Bluepoint Wanted to Be Acquired
Though PlayStation and Bluepoint have been working together for years, Bluepoint has remained independent all that time. That has now changed, of course, and Hulst and Thrush explained why the two decided to make the merger official and bring Bluepoint under the PlayStation Studios banner. And it largely came down to wanting to make that working relationship as beneficial to both sides as possible to let the studio produce its best work.
"Bluepoint is now in a place where there's hardly an entity imaginable that knows PlayStation better than they do, because they've worked with so many different teams on their respective, iconic franchises that they've had a developer insight in a wonderful way," Hulst said, explaining that he let the team finish up Demon's Souls before discussions really began about the acquisition.
"We've expressed that probably better together, making sure that Bluepoint can focus on their games, can focus on what they do best, making amazing worlds, wonderful character development, and make use of all the resources that we have got to offer," Hulst said.
And from Thrush's perspective, the two sides have worked so well together, making the acquisition happen really just allows them to continue doing so without any red tape getting in the way.
"We've loved working with PlayStation all these years. There's really nobody else we want to rather work with, so we started talking to these guys and it just happened to work out," Thrush explained. "And now our future is extremely bright. As Hermen was saying, we have all these opportunities ahead of us. We have all the Sony support. We don't have to grow to become a gigantic studio. We have lots of helping hands on the Sony side now that can fill in for any gaps and maintain our studio culture."
As for when the deal came together, Hulst explained that talks largely occurred after Demon's Souls was released, so that the team could keep its focus on delivering that PS5 exclusive. The two sides saw eye to eye on why the acquisition would be beneficial and, to put it simply, it allows Bluepoint, and Thrush as the studio's president, to focus more on creating the experiences they want to and not have to worry as much about the security of the team as a whole.
"I've also in my past run an independent studio, and I realized that the amount of work you need to do, even when you have close partnerships, on business acquisition and making sure you hedge your bets, there's a lot of energy that goes into that," Hulst elaborated. "I know that if we take that off of Marco's plate and let him focus on what he wants to focus on with his team... then I think that's good for both parties. It's good for them because they get to do what they love most, and it's great for us because there's even more focus by Bluepoint on what we want. And that is amazing content, amazing games to come out of Blueprint."
Thrush echoed this sentiment, noting the opportunities the studio has had for past games, like the ability to hire the London Symphony to score Demon's Souls, or being able to rely on other PlayStation assets, such as already established motion capture studios and more.
And though PlayStation has been on a bit of an acquisitions spree lately - Firesprite, Nixxes, and Housemarque have all also been acquired as first-party studios this year - Hulst explained Sony's recent approach is born from a desire to let these teams do their best work with the resources of PlayStation at their disposal.
"The way we look at our group of studios, and we now have 16 internal teams as part of PlayStation Studios, is very much the way we look at our games. It needs to be right, it needs to fit what we're about in qualitative terms, it's got to be the right games. Same with the teams. The teams stay have to have a very collaborative mindset," Hulst said. "They need to be quality-oriented. We're not buying teams to just be bigger. We're only buying teams because we feel that together, we're going to make something that is going to be even better than if we did it separate from one another."
PlayStation isn't necessarily going to stop looking at potential acquisitions, Hulst explained, but they need to be studios that both share the same values, and can expand what's offered to PlayStation players.
"We are open always to building new relationships or bringing people in-house, but only if we adhere to the quality-first mentality and the right kind of innovative content, new experiences, diverse experiences. Because all of these teams, they share a lot, but they're also very different from one another, and that's what I really like," Hulst said. And I think that's what the PlayStation audience, the PlayStation fans, deserve, it's that diverse slate of games coming out of PlayStation Studios."
Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior Features Editor, PlayStation Lead, and host of Podcast Beyond! He's the proud dog father of a BOY named Loki. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
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