Sony announced this morning via social media that the deal to acquire studio Haven has now officially closed, meaning that the studio is now a part of PlayStation Studios. Jade Raymonds Haven Entertainment Studios has now officially joined Sony Interactive Entertainment since its acquisition closed.
This deal was announced back in March, only one year after the studio was founded, and brings Haven under the Playstation Studios (PSS) banner, becoming the first Canadian-based developer for Sony Interactive Entertainment. The news means that Haven Studios has officially joined the PlayStation Studios family, which has grown considerably over the past few years following deals for studios including Bluepoint Games, Housemarque, and Valkyrie Entertainment.
The deal helps Sony Interactive Entertainment with expanding its reach in the Canadian game development scene, and gives the company yet another big studio working on new games and innovations with cloud-based technologies, something that Raymond noted was the backbone of Haven to begin with. Sony announced on Monday it has reached a deal to acquire Haven Studios, the up-and-coming development team led by Jade Raymond, former Ubisoft Toronto, EA Motive, and the shuttered Stadia Games and Entertainment at Google.
The studio has finalized a deal to fall under the PlayStation Studios umbrella and is working closely with PS5s lead systems architect Mark Cerny to deliver an original triple-A multiplayer game. Following finalization, Jade Raymond-led Haven Studios is moving ahead with AAA multiplayer work on the PlayStation 5, where the team is said to be working in collaboration with Mark Cerny.
It's official! The agreement to acquire Haven has closed. Welcome to the PlayStation Studios family, @HavenStudiosInc! pic.twitter.com/rLFjsRYWdy
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) July 11, 2022
Now having seen another year of development, and the strides that Jade Raymond’s newly formed Haven Studios has made with a PlayStation-exclusive initial IP, Sony has decided the time is right to welcome them to the fold. As a Sony First-party Studio, Jade Raymond’s fledgling Haven Studios will get a chance to work alongside some of the world’s most well-known development teams, including the likes of Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Media Molecule, and Insomniac Games, the makers of games that have inspired us for years as gamers and developers.
They will also be PlayStations’ first-party studio to be located in Canada, and continue under the leadership of Jade Raymonds. The studios are making a PS5 exclusive, it is a Live Service title, so it is a further challenge how they can do this type of title, deliver this type of content, yet still deliver the level of graphics people are expecting from PlayStation.