Returnal studio Housemarque has no plans for a live-service title "as long as people are buying premium games"

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Speaking to Eurogamer at the developer's 30th anniversary event in Finland last week, studio head Ilari Kuittinen and creative director Gregory Louden said "as long as people are buying premium games", Hoursemarque will remain a studio which provides just that.

"Our philosophy is that [our games] are an experience for a certain time of your life, and you experience that within a few days, or weeks, or whatever," Kuittinen said. The studio head added Housemarque's titles are a bit "like movies or TV series", which are there for a certain "phase" of a person's life. "And I believe that's really cool. You don't need to spend the rest of your free time with our games," he said.

"It's a unique experience," Kuittinen continued. "You have it, you get something out of it. Maybe you come back to it, but you don't need to play it for the rest of your life."
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Louden added the studio is currently "fully focused on single player and premium" with its upcoming PS5 title Saros, and Housemarque - which was acquired by Sony in 2021 - aims to make sure it is around for another 30 years by continuing to make "amazing games" and keeping up that "momentum".

"You just need to keep creating special games," the creative director said, before Housemarque's brand director Mikael Haveri added: "We are only as strong as our latest game."
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Haveri acknowledged that Housemarque hadn't necessarily had the easiest of journeys to where it is now, and the team is "aware of pitfalls out there", so it needs to keep making "good games" to thrive.

"It's almost like a responsibility, we're very lucky to be in the position we are in, and we should keep pushing the medium and keep showing what we can do and keep pushing our gameplay and our story and our technology, and just keep growing," Louden furthered. "That's the future for the next 30 years - it's just creating better."
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www.eurogamer.net

Returnal studio Housemarque has no plans for a live-service title "as long as people are buying premium games"

Developer Housemarque, known for the likes of Returnal and Nex Machina, has no plans to go down the free-to-play or live-service route any time soon.
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
 
Bring back your old Twinsticks like Resogun please.

edit-Hell I'll rebuy your old Twinsticks on PC if you put your games on PC.
I might even finish Returnal if you do that.
 
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Good for them. And as long as those games are still as good as or close to Returnal/Resogun, I'll be there.
 
"Our philosophy is that [our games] are an experience for a certain time of your life, and you experience that within a few days, or weeks, or whatever," Kuittinen said. The studio head added Housemarque's titles are a bit "like movies or TV series", which are there for a certain "phase" of a person's life. "And I believe that's really cool. You don't need to spend the rest of your free time with our games," he said.

"It's a unique experience," Kuittinen continued. "You have it, you get something out of it. Maybe you come back to it, but you don't need to play it for the rest of your life."
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Imagine creating a unique, satisfying experience that you will think about years later (if not return to and play again) instead of grinding, crafting, and gambling the same repetitive behaviors during all your free time. I value my time and want to experience variety instead of min-maxing the same game all the time.

And I know not everyone replays games, but I get far more hours of entertainment replaying my favorites once enough time passes and my memory gets fuzzy.
 
Speaking to Eurogamer at the developer's 30th anniversary event in Finland last week, studio head Ilari Kuittinen and creative director Gregory Louden said "as long as people are buying premium games", Hoursemarque will remain a studio which provides just that.

"Our philosophy is that [our games] are an experience for a certain time of your life, and you experience that within a few days, or weeks, or whatever," Kuittinen said. The studio head added Housemarque's titles are a bit "like movies or TV series", which are there for a certain "phase" of a person's life. "And I believe that's really cool. You don't need to spend the rest of your free time with our games," he said.

"It's a unique experience," Kuittinen continued. "You have it, you get something out of it. Maybe you come back to it, but you don't need to play it for the rest of your life."
Click to expand...
That's a fancy way of describing a game studio that makes shooters.
 
I wouldn't consider a roguelike premium personally. The whole point of the genre is extending length with less stages. Usually really small indie teams make roguelikes for that reason. All of Housemarque's previous games were great and none of them had premium pricing.
 
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Magic Carpet said:
Bring back your old Twinsticks like Resogun please.

edit-Hell I'll rebuy your old Twinsticks on PC if you put your games on PC.
I might even finish Returnal if you do that.
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I'd rather have a follow sequel for super stardust HD or delta. Also a sequel to Dead Nation. So much could be done with those. Instead they went full 3d. I loved their indy projects.

In fact I really miss twin stick shooters in general like that and even something like Geometry wars.

Is there any good twin stick shooters that came out in the last few years?
 
Punished Miku said:
I wouldn't consider a roguelike premium personally. The whole point of the genre is extending length with less stages. Usually really small indie teams make roguelikes for that reason. All of Housemarque's previous games were great and none of them had premium pricing.
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Again, 'premium' as in paid game, not 'premium' as in full-priced game. Still, could use better wording as a lot of GAAS are 'premium' games, but the GAAS space is a lot focused on F2P, so I guess that's where they're going.
 
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I'm glad they are developing solely single player games, but a Helldivers 2 squad based extraction game mixed with Returnal like combat and movement would 100% work as a gaas game
 
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Punished Miku said:
I wouldn't consider a roguelike premium personally. The whole point of the genre is extending length with less stages. Usually really small indie teams make roguelikes for that reason. All of Housemarque's previous games were great and none of them had premium pricing.
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You're dismissing it on it's genre? Returnal is one of the best games I've played in the last decade. Fantastic setting, fantastic graphics, fantastic design, intriguing (albeit limited) story, and best of all, amazing gameplay.

The game is "premium".

Implying otherwise is intellectual dishonesty or crazy bias.
 
Bless their heart(s).

I'm going through Returnal right now and man, the music, sound production and art-direction/esthetics are really something else...

...shame then that its whole rogue-like nature is what - IMO - brings it down : there's just no real progression ffs (minus some shortcuts) and everytime you start from zero - I managed to reach the 3rd biome yesterday and its boss with almost 3 health bars, 3 healing items, an astronaut figurine (2nd life basically) AND also managed to activate the respawn machinery - thing took me about 4 sittings and 3+ hours (thank God for the suspend feature they implemented) and yet, I fucking lost everything at the boss...
It's one of the most disheartening games I've ever played since I lost all the will to continue - and this is the 2nd time that it happens.

Losing everything/starting ALL OVER again has to be one of the shittiest mechanics ever invented in gaming, in fact, I still don't get how rogue-likes managed to become such a popular genre.

In my opinion, this would have worked better as a souls-like, meaning, make it as hard as you want BUT, let me restart from a checkpoint/bonfire for fuck's sake, I see nothing fun about having to redo 3 biomes from the start with a good chance to lose everything again at the boss - its RNG nature also doesn't help with it when it comes to weapons dropped, health items etc etc.

I hope that Saros will be somewhat more forgiving 'cause they're leaving money at the table if otherwise - there's a difference in making a "hardcore" game and one that it's really for the few super hardcore people that have unlimited gaming time, almost everyone I talked to (even the guy I bought it from the other day) have said that while they liked the game, the difficulty, repetition and RNG due the rogue like nature was what made them drop it.
 
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Giallo Corsa said:
Bless their heart(s).

I'm going through Returnal right now and man, the music, sound production and art-direction/esthetics are really something else...

...shame then that its whole rogue-like nature is what - IMO - brings it down : there's just no real progression ffs (minus some shortcuts) and everytime you start from zero - I managed to reach the 3rd biome yesterday and its boss with almost 3 health bars, 3 healing items, an astronaut figurine (2nd life basically) AND also managed to activate the respawn machinery - thing took me about 4 sittings and 3+ hours (thank God for the suspend feature they implemented) and yet, I fucking lost everything at the boss...
It's one of the most disheartening games I've ever played since I lost all the will to continue - and this is the 2nd time that it happens.

Losing everything/starting ALL OVER again has to be one of the shittiest mechanics ever invented in gaming, in fact, I still don't get how rogue-likes managed to become such a popular genre.

In my opinion, this would have worked better as a souls-like, meaning, make it as hard as you want BUT, let me restart from a checkpoint/bonfire for fuck's sake, I see nothing fun about having to redo 3 biomes from the start with a good chance to lose everything again at the boss - its RNG nature also doesn't help with it when it comes to weapons dropped, health items etc etc.

I hope that Saros will be somewhat more forgiving 'cause they're leaving money at the table if otherwise - there's a difference in making a "hardcore" game and one that it's really for the few super hardcore people that have unlimited gaming time, almost everyone I talked to (even the guy I bought it from the other day) have said that while they liked the game, the difficulty, repetition and RNG due the rogue like nature was what made them drop it.
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Keep going, eventually your weapons are gonna get traits that absolutely melt bosses and everything on screen, you just have to grind those.

But yeah, progression between runs was dogshit even compared to other roguelites, let alone non-roguelites.

I hope saros is gonna be a normal tps, maybe with a spin but not a roguelike, and i love roguelites but housemarque imo didn't quite understand what make the genre great.
 
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GymWolf said:
Keep going, eventually your weapons are gonna get traits that absolutely melt bosses.

But yeah, progression between runs was dogshit even compared to other roguelites, let alone non-roguelites.

I hope saros is gonna be a normal tps, maybe with a spin but not a roguelike, and i love roguelites but housemarque imo didn't quite understand what make the genre great.
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Wolf, the problem is that even with unlocked perks, you still start with 0 weapon proficiency...
I'm pretty sure I'd have managed to beat the 3rd boss yesterday but the fucking game only dropped either a higher lvl pistol or a shotgun during the run, had I had the Tachyomatic carbine I'd have probably beat him.

Here's the thing now : I just can't muster the courage to do EVERYTHING again from the beginning 'cause I'd be looking at another 2.5-3 hours run, and let's face it, taking the shortcuts doesn't really help since you'll be skipping on the health/weapon upgrades etc etc.

They REALLY need to do something about this shit in Saros.
 
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SHAKEZ said:
Until Hermen demands it out of them.
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Yes, when Hermen made a recap of their studios in an Inverstors Relations presentation I think it was a couple years ago or so splitting them into these groups:
  1. SP, narrative games studios
  2. Support studios
  3. Both SP & GaaS studios
  4. GaaS games studios
playstation-studios-v1-853113-640.webp

Housemarque was included in the first group, meaning they weren't making GaaS and weren't planned to make GaaS going forward.
 
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GymWolf said:
Keep going, eventually your weapons are gonna get traits that absolutely melt bosses and everything on screen, you just have to grind those.

But yeah, progression between runs was dogshit even compared to other roguelites, let alone non-roguelites.

I hope saros is gonna be a normal tps, maybe with a spin but not a roguelike, and i love roguelites but housemarque imo didn't quite understand what make the genre great.
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Saros will 100% be a roguelike. I thought Returnal was phenomenal, but I agree they can do so much to improve the roguelike experience. The variety in gameplay from run to run was not there in Returnal. Hopefully Saros can fix that. Returnal is still one of the best TPS ever created
 
yurinka said:
Yes, when Hermen made a recap of their studios in a presentation last year or so splitting them into these groups:
  1. SP games studios
  2. GaaS games studios
  3. Both SP & GaaS studios
  4. Support studios
Housemarque was included in the first group, meaning they weren't making GaaS and weren't planned to make GaaS going forward.
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I wouldn't trust this for a second.
 
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