Jade Raymond and Hermen Hulst on why Sony is buying Haven Studios
Christopher Dring
Head of Games B2B
Monday 21st March 2022
Haven Studios LLC
Sony Interactive Entertainment
There's something a little different about PlayStation's plan to acquire Haven Studios.
Historically, Sony likes to have a little dating period with a developer, where they might release a few games together before they get married. It's what happened with Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Media Molecule, Insomniac and Housemarque.
Yet Sony announced its partnership with Haven a little over a year ago. The developer may be full of established faces who are responsible for hit games such as Assassin's Creed, but it's still a new studio. It's still growing. It's not even announced the PS5 game it's working on, let alone released it. So why do the deal now?
"You're right, we could have just carried on in the capacity of them being an external development partner," acknowledges PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst. "But what Haven has created is so exciting for us, there was just a desire to deepen that relationship. We have been very impressed with how Haven is coming together.
Jade Raymond, Haven Studios
"It's just easier for us to invest in the team and game more deeply this way. It is testament to the fact we've been very impressed with the progress that Haven has made. They're actually exceeding a lot of the plans, including in terms of time, which very rarely happens in game development, let me tell you. So we thought: Let's invest deeply and do this properly."
Haven Studios head Jade Raymond adds: "It's testament to the talent, and the amazing relationships and trust we have between the team. A lot of these people have worked together over decades on many AAA games. We've created new IPs together. Many of them have gone on to work
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
