What do you expect & hope for from Haven Studios?

[Remember_Spinal]

If you don’t know Haven is a Montreal based gaming studio headed by Jade Raymond of Ubisoft fame. All we know really is that they are around 70 people mostly comprised of former Ubisoft veterans and some from Stadia as of Spring of this year. They are working on something with multiplayer, a ‘persistent world’ and user generated focus, but AAA in scope.

One year ago this month, we embarked on a journey to start Haven Studios with a small team and big ambitions. Our goal was to build a studio where we could make the kind of games we’ve always wanted to create – and games we’ve longed to play!

We’ve made amazing progress in a short time thanks to our talented, passionate team and their exceptional contributions. We established a culture at Haven grounded in kindness, adaptability and courage that unlocks creativity. Our first new IP for PlayStation is on track to deliver a AAA multiplayer experience with a vision to build a systemic and evolving world focused on freedom, thrill, and playfulness that will keep players entertained and engaged for years.

Today, the Haven team begins a new phase of our journey, as part of the PlayStation Studios family. Working with Hermen, 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. They have empowered and encouraged us to bring our bold vision to life and make our dreams come true and we could not be more thrilled about this opportunity to strengthen our partnership.

The lead art director is Raphael Lacoste who worked on most of the assassin creed games. If you don’t know him take a look at his work on art station, the guy is super talented.

I feel like Haven will continue to siphon talent from ubisoft as it grows bigger.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Do we know if the game they are working on for Sony is the same game they were working under Stadia?

I'm not sure if they had to restart from scratch when Sony bought them The game could be closer from release than we think.

I'm hoping for something big like Assassin’s Creed with MP. Those screenshots give me that vibe too

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I truly don't have any idea. The first that comes to mind is:

"Weird". Usually user generated content and AAA are incompatible.

What kind of user generated content? Assets? user generated game modes-levels? Or something more nuanced. Like user interactivity with the world, something more social. (Soul's game message system or A " "Strand Game" type implementation?)

Is this game what Jade was working on at Stadia? If so....something more persistent (one of the cloud's gaming buzzwords)

But this is the thing...and it also applies to MS and any other company for that matter.

Right now Sony has plan like 12 GaaS/Multiplayer games plus their Single player ones. There is no way in hell they achieve 100% success rate with everyone. What I mean is:

Don't be surprised if some of them are big flops, get canceled, or change direction once they have already announced them (take a generation to come out).

I feel this could happen to this game.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Do we know if the game they are working on for Sony is the same game they were working under Stadia?

I'm not sure if they had to restart from scratch when Sony bought them The game could be closer from release than we think.

I'm hoping for something big like Assassin’s Creed with MP. Those screenshots give me that vibe too

I think it was still in pre-development/conceptual stage. They didn’t really have a big team back then, i think only around 25 people.

Sounds like most of the work has been done since they formed Haven in 2021 and received the funding from Sony.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Don't be surprised if some of them are big flops, get canceled, or change direction once they have already announced them (take a generation to come out).

I feel this could happen to this game.

Yeah, but thats the case with every game. Sony cancelled a half dozen single player games last gen, some of them well into development. They said they have over 25 games in development, very possible a few of them will be cancelled or turned into something else.

 

[arvfab]

I hope that their second game will be single-player, in order for me to care.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

I think it was still in pre-development/conceptual stage. They didn’t really have a big team back then, i think only around 25 people.

Sounds like most of the work has been done since they formed Haven in 2021 and received the funding from Sony.

That's disappointing because she was with Google from 2019 to 2021 doing...what???

If it's AAA it could be another 2 or 3 years before we see anything

 

[Kretos]

They're working on a MP game so i don't give a rat's ass about them

 

[Snake29]

I'm really curious about their project. Wasn't it also running on UE5?

 

[Yurinka]

The team has a lot of very talented and experienced people. I'm pretty sure it will be good and successful. Hermen decided to buy them just after 1 year of working with them, so the game must be really promising and it must be progressing super well.

That's disappointing because she was with Google from 2019 to 2021 doing...what???

If it's AAA it could be another 2 or 3 years before we see anything

Being Vice President of Google in charge of the Stadia exclusives until Google decided to stop working on their own games.

She signed some nice indie exclusives and built a studio who was working on three project. When Google shut it down she left with part of that team, did create a new studio, hired former coworkers from Ubisoft and Motive and other top studios, pitched the projects to Sony and in a few months had 2nd party signed with Sony. 1 year later Sony bought them and seems the development is going faster than expected and looking very good.

I think we'll see the game in a year or so from now. And yes, it's a AAA game.

Sony cancelled a half dozen single player games last gen, some of them well into development.

First time I heard about this. I never heard about a cancelled Sony game in the last gen. Source? Which ones were these projects?

They said they have over 25 games in development, very possible a few of them will be cancelled or turned into something else.

I highly doubt they'll cancel any game. All their studios are on fire, many of them released their most successful game ever in this last gen.

"Weird". Usually user generated content and AAA are incompatible.

Think GTA Online, Animal Crossing, Fortnite, The Sims or Minecraft.

Do we know if the game they are working on for Sony is the same game they were working under Stadia?

Yes

I'm hoping for something big like Assassin’s Creed with MP. Those screenshots give me that vibe too

I see something more like PS Home 2.0 / Animal Crossing / social and events side of GTA online + Fortnite. I think it may not feature combat.

 

[Sharinghack]

I expect them to be as creative and forward thinking as when they were with the first Assassins Creed. That game was way ahead of it's time.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

First time I heard about this. I never heard about a cancelled Sony game in the last gen. Source? Which ones were these projects?

Santa Monica’s sci fi game (they talk about it in raising kratos doc)-

Report: Artwork From Sony Santa Monica's Cancelled Game Surfaces Online - PlayStation LifeStyle

Report: Sony Santa Monica cancelled game's art has surfaced online via a former employee's portfolio. Follow the link to flip through the image gallery.

www.playstationlifestyle.net

Guerrillas cancelled monster detective game they were making alongside Horizon (they talk about this in the horizon no clip doc)-

Killzone Dev Scrapped Other PS4 Idea in Favor of Horizon: Zero Dawn (Update) - PlayStation LifeStyle

Guerrilla Games, developer behind Killzone and Horizon Zero Dawn, canceled an unknown project all in the name of Horizon Zero Dawn.

www.playstationlifestyle.net

Suckerpunch cancelled game “prophecy” which was steam punkish, good amount of gameplay done-

Sony Manchesters VR game -

Sony spent five years building a new PlayStation VR studio, then abruptly shut it down

Sony Manchester’s CSAR: Combat, Search, and Rescue was to be a VR helicopter action game harking back to the old days, but it never ended up materializing

www.polygon.com

Wild was cancelled-

PlayStation exclusive title Wild has reportedly been canceled after 7 years

The prehistoric adventure game is no more

www.gamesradar.com

And who knows how many projects were killed off with Japan Studio and who knows what else. People don’t really understand how fluid game development is. So many projects start and stop or turn into other things for a number of reasons. It depends on wants and needs of the publisher, cost and resources, whether they can secure the talent, the health of the studio, etc.

Thats why its not good to announce games early. 25+ games that sony have planned are gonna eventually get made it might just not be the ones currently in production. Herman Hulst himself said a lot of games are still in the conceptual stage so anything can change

 

[Yurinka]

Santa Monica’s sci fi game (they talk about it in raising kratos doc)-

Report: Artwork From Sony Santa Monica's Cancelled Game Surfaces Online - PlayStation LifeStyle

Report: Sony Santa Monica cancelled game's art has surfaced online via a former employee's portfolio. Follow the link to flip through the image gallery.

www.playstationlifestyle.net

Guerrillas cancelled monster detective game they were making alongside Horizon (they talk about this in the horizon no clip doc)-

Killzone Dev Scrapped Other PS4 Idea in Favor of Horizon: Zero Dawn (Update) - PlayStation LifeStyle

Guerrilla Games, developer behind Killzone and Horizon Zero Dawn, canceled an unknown project all in the name of Horizon Zero Dawn.

www.playstationlifestyle.net

Suckerpunch cancelled game “prophecy” which was steam punkish, good amount of gameplay done-

Sony Manchesters VR game -

Sony spent five years building a new PlayStation VR studio, then abruptly shut it down

Sony Manchester’s CSAR: Combat, Search, and Rescue was to be a VR helicopter action game harking back to the old days, but it never ended up materializing

www.polygon.com

Wild was cancelled-

PlayStation exclusive title Wild has reportedly been canceled after 7 years

The prehistoric adventure game is no more

www.gamesradar.com

And who knows how many projects were killed off with Japan Studio and who knows what else. People don’t really understand how fluid game development is. So many projects start and stop or turn into other things for a number of reasons. It depends on wants and needs of the publisher, cost and resources, whether they can secure the talent, the health of the studio, etc.

Thats why its not good to announce games early. 25+ games that sony have planned are gonna eventually get made it might just not be the ones currently in production. Herman Hulst himself said a lot of games are still in the conceptual stage so anything can change

The SSM Stig new IP was started just after GoW3 and was originally going to be for PS3 but it took too long so I assume they moved it to PS4 before cancelling it. But yes, that was a cancelled game.

The Guerrilla article you included mentions "In an email sent to PlaySation LifeStyle, Sony has clarified the post and mentioned Game Director Mathijs de Jonge was referring to everything being put aside for Horizon: Zero Dawn, and not referring to active projects, but more on concept ideas."

Regarding Prophecy, in that vertical slice can be seen multiple mechanics that were later used for Ghost of Tsushima. Before choosing the Mongol invasion of Tsushima setting they explored other ones. According to IGN, Ghost of Tsushima could have been a game about Pirates, Rob Roy or the Three Musketeers. So very likely Prophecy was one of them.

Sony Manchester was shut down because after 6 years they weren't able to ship a small VR game. So yes, whatever project they had undr development got cancelled.

The team behind Wild posted job offers to work in the game months before and months after that rumor about being cancelled, meaning it wasn't cancelled. Michel Ancel games traditionally took a ton of years to be developed, so it wasn't rare to take forever to be released: https://www.psu.com/news/wild-may-not-be-dead-as-developer-wild-sheep-studio-is-hiring-again/

But I went now to the website of the studio and gives an error message, so maybe now it's cancelled and they shut down the studio. Or not.

Japan Studio split into two: its 2nd party publishing side branched off to be the their own XDEV team and stop reporting to a local dev team as happened years before in NA and EU: they are now Japan & Asia team of the global XDEV team, according to Hermen they continue doing the same job (they published Death Stranding Director's Cut after the restructuring). Their internal development side got downsized and merged into one of their internal teams, the Team Asobi who grew and whose leadership got promoted to studio leadership. So since they were now the only team there the studio got rebranted to Team Asobi. Both Team Asobi and their Japanese XDEV team have been growing after the restructuring. We know some people left or were fired during or just after previous Japan Studio projects so we don't know if they started other games.

So the only confirmed cancellations we have is one SSM game that was originally going to be a PS3 game and a VR game from a new studio that wasn't capable to ship a new game in 6 years. Then maybe -unconfirmed- Wild (2nd party title that is/was the first game from an indie studio) and maybe -unconfirmed- someting from Japan Studio. Compared to the huge amount of games they released this generation this is almost nothing, very little compared to the industry standards.

 

[Three]

I truly don't have any idea. The first that comes to mind is:

"Weird". Usually user generated content and AAA are incompatible.

What kind of user generated content? Assets? user generated game modes-levels? Or something more nuanced. Like user interactivity with the world, something more social. (Soul's game message system or A " "Strand Game" type implementation?)

Is this game what Jade was working on at Stadia? If so....something more persistent (one of the cloud's gaming buzzwords)

But this is the thing...and it also applies to MS and any other company for that matter.

Right now Sony has plan like 12 GaaS/Multiplayer games plus their Single player ones. There is no way in hell they achieve 100% success rate with everyone. What I mean is:

Don't be surprised if some of them are big flops, get canceled, or change direction once they have already announced them (take a generation to come out).

I feel this could happen to this game.

My guess would be some shared world that's built by users hence the name haven.

 

[Yurinka]

My guess would be some shared world that's built by users hence the name haven.

As I remember Jade mentioned persistent world and focus on user generated content and coop instead of competitive.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Raphael Lacoste work at Haven Studio as Art Director
Max Gariepy work at Haven Studio as Senior Gameplay Animator

 

[Ezekiel]

I'm thinking maybe some sort of a "Fable" RPG. Something family friendly

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

PlayStation Home or something similar

 

[Remember_Spinal]

PlayStation Home or something similar

Naw i think its gonna be something more likes than rust/groundedd/ark

 

[peter42O]

No expectations or anything until I see what the game is and if there's a single player story campaign. If it's an online multi-player only game, then it's of no interest to me.