Sony has announced that it has purchased another game studio, with PlayStation’s Hermen Hulst confirming the acquisition of Valkyrie Entertainment earlier this morning on December 10. Valkyrie Entertainment is based in Seattle and has done prominent work for numerous other game studios in the past.
It’s even worked with Sony on separate occasions across a variety of franchises and games, including God Of War, and more recently God Of War: Ragnarok. The developer is also credited with work on Microsoft’s Halo Infinite and Riot Games’ Valorant.
Vakyrie Entertainment is one of a handful of developer acquisitions for PlayStation Studios this year. Previous acquisitions include Bluepoint Games. Responsible for the remake of Demon’s Souls. As well as Nixxes Software which specializes in PC game ports, Firesprite, and Housemarque. The studio behind PS5’s Returnal. A game that was awarded Best Action Game of 2021 at the Game Awards on December 9.
Valkyrie Entertainment is the 5th studio acquisition for Sony in 2021
Sony has been on somewhat of a hiring spree this year. Scooping up studios that are aimed to help it expand its library of first-party titles. Though not necessarily in response to Microsoft’s massive Zenimax purchase, the number of acquisitions is somewhat uncharacteristic of Sony compared to prior years. In 2021 alone, Sony has purchased more studios than it did in the last decade combined.
It’s possible Sony isn’t done either. While there’s no telling when its next game development studio acquisition will be, it wouldn’t be a surprise if it happened sooner rather than later.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nor did Hulst mention what any of Valkyrie’s responsibilities would be once on board. Though given its specialty with help co-develop for other studios, there’s a good chance it may continue doing similar work.
In the past year, Sony has also taken measures to launch some of its popular first-party titles on PC. Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn are both available on PC. And God Of War releases on PC in January of 2022. Sony is also working to offer something of a competitor to Xbox Game Pass.
Today we announce @valkyrieent will be joining the PlayStation Studios family. The studio will be making invaluable contributions to key PlayStation Studios franchises pic.twitter.com/sNTugminD5
— Hermen Hulst (@hermenhulst) December 10, 2021
2021-12-11 15:05:54