Sony renews Psygnosis trademark and logo for possible revival

metro.co.uk:

The maker of Lemmings, Colony Wars, G-Police, and WipEout may be making a comeback, as Sony renew their logo.

Ever since Sony bought VR maker Firesprite last year the name of celebrated 90s developer Psygnosis has been mentioned a surprising amount.

That’s in part due to the sad death of co-founder Ian Hetherington but also because a number of ex-Psygnosis staff work at Firesprite, with the studio already being described as the spiritual successor to the developer that brought the world everything from Lemmings to WipEout.

Although many of their franchises live on today, Sony, who bought Psygnosis in 1993, has not used the name or logo since 2000, instead renaming the developer to Studio Liverpool – before closing it down in 2012. But now, for some reason, they’ve re-registered the logo and name.

Trademarks for games are renewed all the time, whether a company intends to use them again or not, but it’s unusual to see the same being done for a developer, especially one so old.

It could merely be a coincidence, but it’s certainly curious that this should happen just days after rumours that Firesprite and Destruction AllStars developer Lucid Games are working together on a new Twisted Metal game.

Like Psygnosis, both developers are based in Liverpool and it’s not hard to imagine that Sony may be thinking of acquiring Lucid Games and perhaps combining them both into a single, larger studio.

Although it’s not confirmed that either are working on Twisted Metal it was surprising to hear that Firespirte might be involved, as previously they were thought to have been acquired by Sony solely for their VR expertise.

If they do form the nucleus of a new Psygnosis though, they’d presumably be working on a range of different titles and not