Haven Studios and Jade Raymond will join the PlayStation department and continue their work on the unannounced IP for them as the acquisition deal was announced today.
Haven Studios was a Montreal-based game development studio that partnered with PlayStation last year on March 16, 2021, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) decided to mark the collaboration by acquiring the studio. The announcement was made today (Monday, March 21, 2022) with both parties expressing excitement about the merging of two great studios. Haven Studios was originally partnered with Sony’s gaming studio to create a new intellectual property (IP) by delivering a new AAA multiplayer experience.
The CEO and founder of Haven Studios, Jade Raymond, shared their thoughts on the merger. “Today, the Haven team begins a new phase of our journey, as part of the PlayStation Studios family. Working with Hermen [Hulst], Connie Booth and the team at PlayStation over the past year has been a career highlight. SIE is a supportive partner that truly understands the creative process and what it takes to make a blockbuster AAA game.”
The acquisition marked Sony’s first leap into the Canadian games development market as many companies like Tencent, EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Nintendo, Warner Bros, Activision Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, Square Enix and Sega have all done in the past. PlayStation will also be gaining a games’ industry leader. Raymond, who helped launch successful titles like Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs, also helped set up Ubisoft Toronto and EA’s Motive Studios. This acquisition comes right after Sony had announced earlier this year their acquisition of Bungie.
SIE CEO, Jim Ryan warmly stated, “Haven Studios is an emerging studio with an exceptional team of talent, and we’re delighted to welcome them into PlayStation as our first game development studio in Canada… The studio’s focus on creating an original AAA multiplayer game will not only flex the power of PlayStation 5 but will further expand upon the diverse catalogue of gaming experiences that can only be found on PlayStation.”
This would also be PlayStation’s 18th development studio in their list of other world-class studios like Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Media Molecule, and Insomniac Games—who Raymond mentioned in their statement. Perhaps, the Haven Studios team will help elevate already successful games even more in games like Spider-Man and the Uncharted games. The team originally had three pitches presented to PlayStation, and they loved them all, but only time will tell as there has been no new information on the new IP they are working on.
