Earlier today, rumours started swirling that PlayStation was moments away from announcing its acquisition of Arrowhead Game Studios, the Swedish team behind the wildly successful Helldivers 2. While the two parties already have a strong relationship – Sony has published both of the Helldivers titles – founder Johan Pilestedt was quick to pour cold water on the reports.
“This is fake, unless I’ve missed something,” he jokingly wrote on Twitter. While it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Arrowhead could eventually be acquired, it doesn’t look like anything of that nature is afoot right now.
Indeed, Sony recently laid off a whopping 900 employees across its various first-party teams last week, and shuttered London Studio in the process. As such, we can’t imagine this is the right time to announce expensive corporate buyouts.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 37
The internet loves spreading fake news 😄
Stay independent. Get bought, get shut down.
Whilst they would clearly be a target for acquisition if Sony were making such investments, it's quite clear that this is not the time for such investments.
They are likely to remain a strong partner, and may be a target in the future, but clearly won't be right now..
This fake news stuff has become such a cycle.
Clout chasers online mock up and "report" credible stuff based on predictions. Before the Switch 2 and PS5 Pro rumours were actually backed up, there were years of fake rumours about it.
It's the equivalent of putting $500 on Red at roulette and if it comes in red declaring yourself a soothsayer. You'll often find with these leakers, if you dig into their online presence, a list of failed "leaks" (read: guesses)
Bluepoint also shot down rumours before the official announcement so its not completely dead in the water just yet
Sony seems to love Scandinavian devs but hate UK ones
It seems like it's only a matter of time before this happens tbf.
I'd be surprised if we don't hear about Helldivers Mobile in the next year or two.
Insert Shia LaBeouf "Just do it" gif here...
Not a take over but I do wonder if Sony will ask them if they can take an play test some of their GAAS games
I do think it will probably happen, but clearly it's not getting announced today as people were claiming.
Should've done this before the Helldivers 2 release, now they've become way more expensive.
Good. I would prefer they stay independent rather then get brought then a load of staff fired. Along with not having much choice in what they are making and forced road maps ect ect
There is no smoke without fire and this will happen, its just not official...yet
I'd rather they remain independent for as long as possible but in this day and age... Sony might be a safer bet for them eventually. I think it's gonna happen down the line.
Helldivers belongs to Sony, this game should have a long enough life leading into the ps6
There's absolutely no reason to buy them
@Anthony_Daniels Yep, people don't get acquiring is also acquiring overhead costs and that brings in extra risks see what happened to the ''Green'' side. And the pressure of MS going after studios excluding PS with their current strategy is gone.
Sony owns the IP and Arrowhead ain't going anywhere outside Helldivers 2 coming 3-4 years for sure. The better and cheaper option would be just for them to sign on for another title for next-gen, let them do Socom for PS6..
I don't think it will happen, but being second party isn't bad either.
Nintendo has lots of second party partner studios.
People need to read the room. Now would be the worst time for Sony to make an acquisition.
Hopefully we're seeing the end of these kinds of takeovers anyway. It would be better to have lots of independent studios, instead of loads of publisher or platform owned studios.
This goes for some of the big dogs, too. It's worked wonders for IO Interactive and hopefully Toys for Bob can make a good go of things in their own.
Deals like Sony and Bungie are a lesser of the evils, where they're owned but remain independent and publish widely, but still open to f***ery.
Good, after what we seen Sony needs to get their stuff straightened out before even thinking on acquiring anything.
No need for more premature studio shutdowns or layoffs.
Doesn't mean anything. If it's true, he definitely doesn't have the right to talk about it until it's done anyway, so you can't actually believe what he says.
Fake for now. It's inevitable.
Owning the IP is enough. They don't need to acquire the Devs.
Sweet liberty I was worried
Ok ok - I'll buy them. Probably announce a remake of a fan favourite from the PS2 era. Then close them. Seems like a solid business model.
In the event they did get acquired, as it currently stands helldivers is doing just fine. So long as they don’t go full bungie (love Destiny but good god, that company is weird) and stop making effort post acquisition, I don’t think there’d be much incentive for Sony to meddle.
@Kidfunkadelic83 they could also close down if their games after this flop. successful developers aren't getting shut down.
i would give them the socom franchise and see what they could do with it
@twitchtvpat but atleast their team wont be pulled apart to work on live service s*it because Sony, Microsoft, whoever deems it necessary. If they make crap games its all on them. They have the freedom to make what they feel passionate about.
Yeah tired of the constant they are being acquired anytime someone puts a quality game out. Microsoft really started this annoying fiasco
If it's going to happen, then I hope the devs don't have any sort of layoffs forced on them by Sony.
@Deadlyblack why are people trying to force these lay off comments in these stories? i don't get it. its sad that people lost their jobs , but to act like sony or any other tech companies enjoy laying off people is just foolish.
@twitchtvpat It's not really forcing since major layoffs have been the big topic of discussion in the game industry for the start of 2024, and it's going to continue to be a topic as more companies do it.
It's not something we just brush under the rug and ignore, especially with how frequent it's been happening.
@Deadlyblack the tech industry as a whole is having massive layoffs currently not just gaming. and it is forcing it if it has nothing to do with the article you are commenting on.
Insomniac, Bluepoint and Housemarque said the same once lol, just saying.
Bluepoint said the same thing about a month before they were acquired, and these deals don't happen over night.
Not every company needs to be acquired, you know.
They say that now, but, I can see this studio going the some way of House Marque in a few years time
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