Developer Housemarque, known for the likes of Returnal and Nex Machina, has no plans to go down the free-to-play or live-service route any time soon.
Speaking to Eurogamer at the developer’s 30th anniversary event in Finland last week, studio head Ilari Kuittinen and creative director Gregory Louden said “as long as people are buying premium games”, Hoursemarque will remain a studio which provides just that.
“Our philosophy is that [our games] are an experience for a certain time of your life, and you experience that within a few days, or weeks, or whatever,” Kuittinen said. The studio head added Housemarque’s titles are a bit “like movies or TV series”, which are there for a certain “phase” of a person’s life. “And I believe that’s really cool. You don’t need to spend the rest of your free time with our games,” he said.
“It’s a unique experience,” Kuittinen continued. “You have it, you get something out of it. Maybe you come back to it, but you don’t need to play it for the rest of your life.”
Louden added the studio is currently “fully focused on single player and premium” with its upcoming PS5 title Saros, and Housemarque – which was acquired by Sony in 2021 – aims to make sure it is around for another 30 years by continuing to make “amazing games” and keeping up that “momentum”.
“You just need to keep creating special games,” the creative director said, before Housemarque’s brand director Mikael Haveri added: “We are only as strong as our latest game.”
Haveri acknowledged that Housemarque hadn’t necessarily had the easiest of journeys to where it is now, and the team is “aware of pitfalls out there”, so it needs to keep making “good games” to thrive.
“It’s almost like a responsibility, we’re very lucky to be in the position we are in, and we should keep pushing the medium and keep showing what we can do and keep pushing our gameplay and our story and our technology, and just keep growing,” Louden furthered. “That’s the future for the next 30 years – it’s just creating better.”
Back in February 2022, Sony stated it aimed to launch over 10 new live-service games over the coming years. A month later, then-Sony exec Jim Ryan said he believed live-service games were a key part of gaming’s future, confident in PlayStation’s live-service push.
Since then the company has dialled back its plans and just this month, the Sony published live-service shooter Fairgames was reportedly delayed, as Haven Studios founder Jade Raymond made her exit from the company.