In the not too distant past, Sony announced that it had disposed of Evolution Studios, a first-party developer, the studio whose most recent release was the exclusive to the PS4 title, ”Driveclub”.
With Sony ending all ties with Evolution Studios, their future was thrown into uncertainty and it was not immediately clear as to what would now become of them. The studio was not able to continue on independently. Out of the uncertainty this turmoil wrought on Evolution Studios, a bright future has emerged with the news that Codemasters, makers of such racing games as the current F1 title F1 2015 racing games, has acquired Evolution Studios.
Based in the UK, Codemasters is poised to complete their acquisition of Evolution Studios on April 25th. The two studios will then consolidate their merger, with Evolution co-founder, Mick Hocking then taking charge as the vice president of product development with Codemasters.
Considering Sony owns both Driveclub and the MotorStorm franchises, the latter being the title that actually brought Evolution Studios to the attention of the gaming world, it is highly unlikely that this combination will ever work on those two titles again. In order for this to happen, there would have to be an arrangement reached with Sony.
Looking at the licensing power of Codemasters and the technical abilities of Evolution Studios, I think we can look forward to some very interesting titles that may hold some very pleasant surprises for all the avid sim racers and gamers out there. Now that all three franchises are under one developer’s roof, perhaps we may even see some greatly improved and revamped titles such as GRID, DIRT or F1.
Whichever way it goes, Sony no longer has a say so in what is released, so we can expect any further releases to be multi-platform ones.
