Sony has announced that they have acquired “Firewalk Studios.” Here, some former developers of Destiny 1, who left Bungie after then-CEO Harold Ryan left in 2016 or was let go by Activision. The studio is to develop a new “AAA multiplayer game” for PlayStation 5, apparently a service game like Destiny.
What kind of studio is this? “Firewalk” is a studio that was founded in 2018. Until now, it has been part of “Probably Monsters,” a group of top developers with many former Destiny employees.
The idea of Probably Monsters is to unite several game studios under one roof and develop their own brands there. The teams were supposed to develop freely, and Probably Monsters would then take care of other business parts. Now Firewalk is being sold to Sony, and the studio will therefore be spun off from Probably Monsters:
The key people at Firewalk were former Bungie employees such as:
- Studio head Tony Hsu (previously General Manager and Senior Vice President for Destiny at Bungie)
- Creative Ryan Ellis (previously Creative Director at Bungie).
The studio currently has about 150 developers.
Sony has been collaborating with Firewalk since 2021 – Plans service game offensive
Why is Sony buying the studio? Firewalk and Sony have been working together since April 2021. Sony seems to be convinced by the people there. They say Firewalk has an innovative approach to storytelling and is “committed to high-quality gameplay.”
The acquisition of Firewalk is part of Sony’s plan to enter the “live service” sector, where they plan 10 new games for PlayStation 5 and have also acquired Bungie in January 2022.
What do the developers say? Tony Hsu says they have a fantastic team, work well with Sony, and are looking forward to utilizing the “incredible creative power” of the PlayStation studio network. Now they can make their vision a reality.
His former boss, Harold Ryan, says he is proud of the team and the game that has developed over the years. They are very happy for the team.
CEO left Bungie very quietly in 2016
Why did they all leave Bungie back then? This is still not really known today. Harold Ryan left Bungie in early 2016. That was around the time it became clear that they would not meet the crazy master plan of Activision Blizzard and that Destiny 2 would not be released as planned in 2016.
Perhaps Microsoft was satisfied with Bungie at that time, or the people at Bungie no longer wanted to work under such a tight schedule. There was also a reboot of Destiny later on. However, it is unclear whether Ryan’s departure was related to all of this or whether he simply wanted to do something different after 16 years.
In retrospect, it’s ironic: Ryan left after 2015, which is now considered “the golden age of Destiny” – for some fans, Destiny was never better than with “The Taken King,” which was released in September 2015.
In the following years, some familiar faces left Bungie and moved on to Probably Monsters: Ryan has also established his company in Seattle, where Bungie also operates.
Ryan’s company subsequently raised $200 million in record time and developed new games. However, none of them have been seen yet. Perhaps now the one from Firewalk.
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