WipEout developers launch new studio with futuristic sports game planned

[Gamernyc78]

WipEout developers launch new studio with futuristic sports game planned

Developers from the original PS1 classic WipEout have formed a new studio, with a futuristic sports game on the way.

www.eurogamer.net

Starlight Games is a new studio based in Liverpool, UK, founded by former Psygnosis developer Gary Nichols.

He's joined by co-creator of WipEout Nick Burcombe, and Skate co-creator and former Horizon: Call of the Mountain director Andy Santos.

The studio will focus on developing new IP with innovative gameplay, all using Unreal Engine 5, plus it seeks to discover young new talent.

Its first game will be House of Golf 2 - a sort of home-based crazy golf game - releasing in summer 2024 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. That's a follow up to the first game released on Switch in 2019.

Two further games are in development. One is a futuristic sports title directed by Burcombe, with more details expected soon. For now there's a teaser trailer featuring a number of people in coloured body suits and the caption "welcome to the future of sports".

 

[Yurinka]

Nice, I wish them luck. Let's hope they get successful and get support from people like Sony.

Just a couple details: Gary did work in several Psygnosis games, none of them being Wipeout titles. Nick was a designer of the two first Wipeout games and didn't work in the IP since then.

 

[Nym]

Anything but Wipeout please

 

[mibu no ookami]

Goes a long way to show that things aren't really working out at Firesprite.

The real worst buy (so far) in the Jim Ryan era.

Note: that I say that with no knowledge of how much they bought Firesprite for. For all we know they just took oversight of the studio over from private, but it ultimately doesn't look like it has paid any dividends one way or another. And the purchase puts into doubt other purchases of studios that really haven't made any games.

The working assumption at the time was that sony must have really seen something that impressed them about these studios, but who knows what that was at this point. Maybe they were just on a bit of a pandemic spending spree.

 

[Yurinka]

Goes a long way to show that things aren't really working out at Firesprite.

The real worst buy (so far) in the Jim Ryan era.

Note: that I say that with no knowledge of how much they bought Firesprite for. For all we know they just took oversight of the studio over from private, but it ultimately doesn't look like it has paid any dividends one way or another. And the purchase puts into doubt other purchases of studios that really haven't made any games.

The working assumption at the time was that sony must have really seen something that impressed them about these studios, but who knows what that was at this point. Maybe they were just on a bit of a pandemic spending spree.

Firesprite did a great job adapting Horizon to VR, was one of the best PSVR2 games. One of the games they have in the works sounds like an Until Dawn sequel (they have several former Supermassive devs), give them enough time to see what they can do. Firesprite is a very flexible team with former Psygnosis/Liverpool Studios/XDEV, Evolution, Bizarre Creations or Supermassive people. So can do great racing or horror games.

They made tech demo apps like London or Team Asobi so they can make this role in the future too, they made support in games like Star Citizen so can do this too, made great VR stuff like Horizon CoM and The Persistence. Even made some mobile games experiment for Sony.

In addition to this, the studio is big enough to work in multiple games at the same time.

Regarding these other two guys who started the new studio, they are totally unrelated to Firesprite, in fact they didn't work in a game during the last 10 years or so and their several most recent games weren't great.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Firesprite did a great job adapting Horizon to VR, was one of the best PSVR2 games. One of the games they have in the works sounds like an Until Dawn sequel (they have several former Supermassive devs), give them enough time to see what they can do. Firesprite is a very flexible team with former Psygnosis/Liverpool Studios/XDEV, Evolution, Bizarre Creations or Supermassive people. So can do great racing or horror games.

They made tech demo apps like London or Team Asobi so they can make this role in the future too, they made support in games like Star Citizen so can do this too, made great VR stuff like Horizon CoM and The Persistence. Even made some mobile games experiment for Sony.

In addition to this, the studio is big enough to work in multiple games at the same time.

Regarding these other two guys who started the new studio, they are totally unrelated to Firesprite, in fact they didn't work in a game during the last 10 years or so and their several most recent games weren't great.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Firesprite did a great job adapting Horizon to VR, was one of the best PSVR2 games. One of the games they have in the works sounds like an Until Dawn sequel (they have several former Supermassive devs), give them enough time to see what they can do. Firesprite is a very flexible team with former Psygnosis/Liverpool Studios/XDEV, Evolution, Bizarre Creations or Supermassive people. So can do great racing or horror games.

They made tech demo apps like London or Team Asobi so they can make this role in the future too, they made support in games like Star Citizen so can do this too, made great VR stuff like Horizon CoM and The Persistence. Even made some mobile games experiment for Sony.

In addition to this, the studio is big enough to work in multiple games at the same time.

Regarding these other two guys who started the new studio, they are totally unrelated to Firesprite, in fact they didn't work in a game during the last 10 years or so and their several most recent games weren't great.

I'm not saying they're great, my point is that Firesprite probably shouldn't have been purchased at this point. And had they just allowed Firesprite to develop Horizon VR and not bought them, they probably don't buy them today.

They were one of the first studios to have layoffs.

 

[Yurinka]

I'm not saying they're great, my point is that Firesprite probably shouldn't have been purchased at this point. And had they just allowed Firesprite to develop Horizon VR and not bought them, they probably don't buy them today.

They were one of the first studios to have layoffs.

I think it was a good acquitision because Sony needed (and need) studios who do VR, and in this case also to don't need London or Team Asobi to do tech demos so they can focus on games. On top of this, Firesprite is the resurrection of 3 iconic racing games studios, 2 of them from Sony, and is the only studio they have with expertise in this area.

So if in the future they consider it's the time to bring back (something I'd love, but outside a few IPs arcade racing nowadays doesn't sell a shit) Wipeout, Rollcage, Motorstorm, Driveclub etc they would be the best studio to do them. I think maybe nowadays doesn't make a lot of sense. But in the future, if Sony manages to get a wider and stronger eSports and GaaS structure plus VR market they could bring some of the these series back, with a VR compatible eSports GaaS title for console + PC released at the same time than a tv/cinema adaptation (they are working in a ton of adaptations, so at some point they'll run out of IPs and will use these ones).

And well, they have people from Supermassive and made The Persistence, so can also be their horror games studios.