Twisted Metal PS5 PlayStation 5 1

Update: As spotted by ResetEra, veteran Motorstorm director Matt Southern has left his job at Lucid Games to join Firesprite. It might be safe to assume that Southern was involved with Sony's new-gen Twisted Metal reboot, which has changed developer from Lucid Games to Firesprite. Of course, it won't change the commute too much for Southern: both studios are based in Liverpool, UK.


Original Story: Sony is making a Twisted Metal reboot for the PlayStation 5 to coincide with its impending 2023 television show, although its developer has changed. VGC reported the news earlier today, but we can corroborate the information. We were informed late last year that Liverpool-based studio Lucid Games had been ejected from a Sony published project, which was handed to a “recently acquired” first-party team, almost certainly Firesprite, the developer of Horizon Call of the Mountain. To add to the drama, Lucid Games and Firesprite are both headquartered in the same UK city: Liverpool.

According to our sources, this change was sudden and unexpected. Development of a new Twisted Metal has been an open secret for some time now, and while Sony has yet to publicly acknowledge the existence of the game, it’s still very much on the agenda internally. Firesprite has been hiring for a multiplayer game, and is currently Sony’s largest team in the UK.

It’s unclear exactly why Lucid Games was removed from the project, but one source told VGC that it could be due to the lukewarm critical reception Destruction AllStars received. Our understanding is that work continues on the former PS Plus freebie, with a major update due later this month, although whether that will revive the car combat title’s fortunes remains to be seen.

As for Sony’s Twisted Metal television show, it’s being billed as an action comedy, in which a courier is forced to navigate a wasteland ruled by a group of raucous vehicular raiders, including the iconic Sweet Tooth. Whether or not the PS5 reboot will play into the fiction of the show remains unclear, but it’s interesting that the platform holder has decided to develop this in the UK, as the series has historically always performed best in the US. Creator David Jaffe recently talked with some displeasure over the rumoured existence of the game, as he apparently hadn’t been contacted about it at the time.

[source videogameschronicle.com]