Earlier this month, a leak of a document belonging to Sony Interactive Entertainment unveiled several PS5 and PC projects developed by studios first party and third parties, some of whom are already known, thereby supporting its authenticity. Among them, a certain “Camden” being produced at SIE London Studio. Even if this title is not mentioned, it is indeed a game taking place in a fantastic city of London which has just been made official by this entity with GamesIndustrywith a unique visual giving us an idea of the artistic direction chosen, with a demonic-looking young woman and a partner attacking goblins and a huge dragon, Big Ben clearly visible in the background.
The studio known for the metaverse before the time it was Playstation HomeGames EyeToy and wonder bookand more recently behind Blood & Truth (sold €17.24 on Amazon) for the Playstation-VR has therefore put virtual reality aside to focus on this unnamed project for the moment. With the will put forward by PlayStation Studios to offer a dozen service games within 4 years, it is not surprising that this is the case with this “Camden”, as the article confirms. It will indeed be an online cooperative title based on fights that will therefore take place in London, which is designed specifically for the PS5. The previously cited document also mentioned PCs, to see what will happen when more details are communicated.
Stuart Whyte, head of the studio, said:
With this project, we really wanted to explore new possibilities and set ourselves new challenges. We really wanted to try something a little different, and I think this new project really channels our ‘daring’ value and also allows us to push ourselves on the ‘curiosity’ front. It’s an exciting future, really.
Innovation will always be at the heart of what we do. If you look at our legacy and the titles we’ve made, there are a lot of firsts in there. And it will continue.
Tara Saunders, who also runs the company, added:
What’s great about this legacy is the problem-solving aspect. We’ve taken different technologies and looked at how we’re transforming the games industry and delivering concepts that have never been done before. This heritage means the team is comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone.
Even though we’re not working on something that uses all the different peripherals, it’s still about taking that DNA of innovation and integrating it into any game concept.
It’s our most ambitious game to date. We’re going to take all that innovation DNA and apply it to this online cooperative combat game.
[Sur notre concept art]you see a vision of a fantastic modern London. Our main theme is to bring fantasy and magic elements and intersect them with familiar worldsand there are not many more familiar with London than us.
To go further, Stuart Whyte evoked the way in which his team came to propose this concept, which even if it is not in VRwill still use the tools designed for it, but associated with a brand new game house.
The idea for the game was born from an ideation process that we engaged with the whole team. We have created a high level background document, but with a lot of latitude and scope. And the team came up with lots of ideas. We got inspiration from the process by talking to our colleagues at Guerrilla Games. We were fascinated with how they transitioned from Killzone to Horizon: Zero Dawn, and that’s exactly the process they went through.
So the team came up with a whole host of ideas over a period of months and we refined them until we came to a very small shortlist. Then we went out and talked to PlayStation management, we talked to other PlayStation studios… Very importantly, we talked to our team about which one they’re most excited about. This concept has achieved very good results in all these areas. We polled hundreds of gamers in the UK and US, through an anonymous poll, with some of the shortlisted ideas… This is the one that came out on top.
Our Soho Engine, our internal game engine, is at the heart of what we do here. It’s an engine that was designed from the ground up for this generation of hardware and the needs of the game we’re creating. It’s designed to take full advantage of the PS5. But it’s fair to say that some of the tools we use date back to technologies from VR Worlds and Blood & Truth that we had on PS4. Because at the end of the day, VR games need to have super-efficient pipelines and engines.
The rest of the paper, just as interesting, evokes the corporate culture of the studio and the challenge represented by COVID-19. Feel free to take a look if you are interested.
So, what do you think of this future production?
| Alexandre SAMSON (Omega Law) Responsible Corrector – Editor | ||
| Addicted to Assassin’s Creed and Destiny, great fan of RPGs and passionate about video game experiences in general. Reader of comics (DC) and various manga (One Piece!). Chemist by training and Whovian at heart. | ||
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