PlayStation Studios has expanded yet again with the acquisition of Bluepoint Games. Announced at today’s Tokyo Game Show in Chiba, Japan, the news is not entirely surprising. Bluepoint developed the PS5’s first exclusive and launch title, Demon’s Souls, which has sold 1.4 million copies since November. Meanwhile, Sony has been on the move to expand its first-party roster by purchasing Dutch studio Nixxes to help develop PC ports, Finnish Returnal developer Housemarque, and U.K.-based VR developer Firesprite earlier this year.
Based in Austin, Texas, the studio of over 60 has worked closely with other Sony first-party studios for over a decade. Bluepoint remastered God of War and God of War II for the PS3’s God of War Collection and have since worked on notable ports and remasters like Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, Gravity Rush Remastered, 2018’s Shadow of the Colossus, and last year’s remaster of Demon’s Souls.
Bluepoint is notably comprised of many notable former Retro Studio’s employees. Co-founders Andy O’Neil and Marco Thrush worked on Metroid Prime before establishing the studio in 2006. In an interview with Launcher, Thrush, who is also the studio’s president, said the acquisition “finally gives us the ability to work on original content, which is what we’re actually currently doing.”
How original that new content is is not entirely clear, however. The potential for a sequel or spin-off of existing IP would seem almost a given with the studio’s background and success reinventing the worlds of studios like FromSoftware.
