Facebook announces that it now owns Sanzaru Games. Sanzaru Games is the developer that created Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and fans may be disappointed to hear the news as it means that the team will be unable to develop Sly Cooper 5.
In a post on the official Oculus site, Facebook confirmed that Sanzaru Games will be joining to the company to help "pursue a future of rich, immersive, and original VR game content." Many PlayStation fans will known Sanzarau Games as a Sly Cooper developer but it has also released successful VR games such as Asgard's Wrath and Marvel Powers United VR.
Sanzaru Games is the second VR game developer that Facebook has purchased in the last few months. Facebook also bought Beat Saber developer Beat Games in November 2019. Beat Games new releases will not be exclusive to Oculus VR headsets and while Facebook did not confirm exclusivity for Sanzaru Games new games, it did say that "Sanzaru has exciting plans for future VR titles and we hope to bring those experiences to as many people as possible."
Facebook's move to buy two VR developers is part of its larger plan to grow Oculus sales. Oculus headsets have been selling well but as Valve plans to release Half-Life: Alyx and there is a rumored Left 4 Dead VR game, so Facebook knows that keeping the headsets successful will not be easy. Buying developers which can keep making great VR games for Oculus could potentially help the company make millions more dollars in headset sales.
However, Sly Cooper fans may be surprised and upset by this announcement. In December 2019, Matt Kraemer the lead designer of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time confirms that the development team loves the character of Sly Cooper. Some had hoped that Sanzaru Games would start developing Sly Cooper 5 for PS5, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
Sony could potentially get another developer to develop Sly Cooper 5 though and last month there were rumors that a new Sly Cooper game was going to be announced. The game was rumored to be for PS4 which seems unlikely as the PS5 is releasing in holiday 2020, but the game could be for new and old consoles.
In August 2019, Sony bought Insomniac Games which develops the popular Ratchet and Clank series. It's unclear if Insomniac would want to make a Sly Cooper game but if a new game is going to be made, its name would probably be thought of.
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is available on PS3.
Source: Oculus
