The Finnish studio has admitted that if they had remained independent, their next game, Saros, would definitely not have been made…

Ilari Kuittinen, CEO of Housemarque, says that the team’s next game would never have been made if the studio had remained independent. Kuittinen gave more details to the Finnish publication Helsingin Sanomat. The team is now owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment, so Housemarque is part of PlayStation Studios. Kuittinen said that giving up independence was a cultural change for the studio. They had to get used to following Sony’s HR practices.

In return, they had more financial resources at their disposal, which allowed the studio to move into larger offices, giving them a key to the execution of Saros. If Housemarque had remained independent, the Finnish team would never have been able to invest as much as they needed to bring the game into full development in 2022. Kuittinen didn’t talk about specifics, so we don’t know what the game’s budget is, but Helsegin Sanomat reports that the budget is close to what another Finnish studio, Remedy Entertainment, spent on Alan Wake 2 (€70 million).

Saros was officially revealed during State of Play in February with a cinematic trailer that gave some hints about the game’s setting and story. While very little is known about the game’s mechanics at the moment, from what we know so far, Saros will be based on the mechanics of Returnal, with a world that constantly transforms after each death, but will also have a permanent progression system to help players overcome the many challenges that lie ahead. So there’s always something new to look forward to.

But Saros won’t be one of this year’s big PlayStation drops, as it’s official that the PlayStation 5 will get Housemarque’s new game sometime in 2026.

Source: WCCFTech