Sony and PlayStation has announced its latest acquisition in the form of Haven Studios: a new development studio lead by Jade Raymond – perhaps best known as being the Assassin’s Creed co-creator.
In an interview over on GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst notes that “what Haven has created is so exciting for us, there was just a desire to deepen that relationship”. Apparently, PlayStation has been impressed by “what [Haven has created]” for the publisher and “how it is coming together”.
Per Hulst, Haven is ahead of schedule – a rarity in this industry – and the team’s progress prompted Sony to “invest deeply and do this properly”.
Raymond, who has previously held roles high-profile roles at Google Stadia, EA, and Ubisoft, formed the new Montreal-based studio back in 2021. Even then, Haven was confirmed to be working under PlayStation, developing a PS5 exclusive online service game.
“Today, the Haven team begins a new phase of our journey, as part of the PlayStation Studios family,” Raymond said in a statement on the PlayStation blog. Despite her decorated career so far, Raymond notes her time at Sony thus far is “a career highlight”.
“As a SIE [Sony Interactive Entertainment] first-party studio, we will have the opportunity to collaborate with some of the world’s most renowned development teams, including studios like Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Media Molecule, and Insomniac Games, the creators of games that have inspired us as players and developers for years. We’re excited to learn from these world-class studios, as well as the exceptional central creative, technology and marketing teams whose expertise will enable us to deliver even better games to players.
Excited to officially welcome @HavenStudiosinc to PlayStation Studios! Super impressed by @ibjade and her talented team, and their vision for an original multiplayer game for PlayStation. Congrats to everyone at Haven! pic.twitter.com/EjWFbh1HEc
— Hermen Hulst (@hermenhulst) March 21, 2022
So what is Haven working on, alongside the other notable PlayStation first-party talents? Well, it’s no secret that Raymond and her team are making a ‘persistent, scalable online game’ for PS5 and PC, which is particularly focused on “pushing the technical capabilities of the [PS5] console further,” per Raymond.
But given that note about collaboration, it also stands to reason that Raymond will be working with other studios to help bolster PlayStation’s weakest arm at the time of writing: service games.
During an earnings call in February, Sony confirmed plans to launch ‘at least 10 live-service games by March 2026’ – we expect Raymond’s studio will play a large part in seeing that goal through, alongside Bungie (which Sony also acquired earlier this year).
There has been no word on what this acquisition will cost Sony, nor when Haven’s first game is expected to launch. I’d wager dollars to donuts it’d be before March 2026, though.