Many of Sony’s studios are especially busy right now with major upcoming PlayStation releases, like Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Forbidden West and Santa Monica’s God of War: Ragnarok. Some studios are still keeping details on their projects close to their chests, such as London Studio.
The PlayStation studio is most definitely working on something. Back in March, London Studio’s co-heads, Tara Saunders and Stuart Whyte, teased their next project, only describing it as something with huge potential. No exact details have been shared, rumored, or leaked since then. However, a recently discovered job listing at the studio may give a couple of details away.
Spotted on LinkedIn, the listing is for a senior game designer, and, in one section, it mentions key areas that the ideal applicant would already have experience in. One of them is combat design, which more or less confirms that London Studio’s new game will feature action gameplay. Although this isn’t particularly surprising since its last release was the 2019 PlayStation VR first-person shooter Blood and Truth.
What is interesting is that it also mentions co-op (both local and online) and online multiplayer gameplay. Blood and Truth was purely single-player, so London Studio seems to be branching out. In addition, it says experience with GaaS (games as a service) and ongoing games would be beneficial, which points to London Studio’s new game being some kind of live-service title, or at the very least feature live-service elements like regular and frequent post-launch content, season passes, and/or microtransactions.
At this stage, it’s far too early to predict whether the game will be a completely dedicated live-service title with a heavy emphasis on multiplayer and co-op or if those elements will take a backseat to a dedicated single-player campaign. But, in most cases, games with live-service elements tend to primarily focus on those, such as battle-royale games like Fortnite and Apex Legends. Even Square Enix’s Avengers, while offering a robust campaign mode, expects players to invest in the online multiplayer once they’re done with the single-player.
There’s currently no telling when London Studio will actually announce its game. Perhaps during The Game Awards this December? The event has always played host to some major game reveals from the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. It’s also unclear how far along development on the game has progressed, and whether London Studio and/or Sony wishes to unveil it early with a brief teaser or wait until it has some substantial gameplay footage to demonstrate.
