It was reported this week that Sony had decided to move away from the plan to have Destruction All-Star developer Lucid Games develop the rumored reboot of the Twisted Metal franchise. At the time the only thing we knew was that Sony planned to hand development off to a first-studio located in Europe. Now thanks to the same source as that previous news, via VGC, it would appear we know which studio will be taking over.
Disclaimer – This information has not been verified on our end, therefore we cannot confirm this as factual.
It would appear that Sony is now handing the reigns of developing the reboot to Firesprite, whom Sony had acquired late last year and already has one IP based on a Sony first-party title in the works, Horizon VR: Call of The Mountain. As it turns out, Firesprite and Lucid are located only around 15 minutes from each other, and according to VGC, there is evidence of staff moving between the two.
As noticed by a Resetera user, Matt Southern, who has directed several Motorstorm games as well as originally pitched Drive Club, has stepped down from his role as game director at Lucid in order to take the very same role at Firesprite. It is unclear at this time if Matt had been working at the time on Lucids’ Twisted Metal project, though the time of events make it seem likely that he was.
Firesprite was acquired in September 2020 by Sony, following their trend of purchasing studios that they have enjoyed a close work relationship in the past. At the time of Acquisition, Herman Hulst stated:
After a number of years closely collaborating on several games together, including The Playroom (PS4) and The Playroom VR (PS VR), I couldn’t be more delighted to welcome Firesprite to the PlayStation Studios family as our 14th studio. Firesprite is a creative and ambitious studio that is exceptional at building incredible experiences that truly showcase the potential of our hardware. The team’s technical and creative capabilities will be paramount to growing our stellar catalogue of exclusive games, and I think you’ll be excited for what’s to come.
After the acquisition, the studio had stated they were hiring for several AAA IPs. One of the titles being developed is a multiplayer shooter, another is “a dark, narrative adventure with genre-defining goals”, while the third was a VR title based on an existing IP which we now know to be Horizon VR. If this does pan out to be true it is unclear if a Twisted Metal title had previously been factored into their plans, or if this might affect the already planned games in some way.
Source – VGC
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