Sony’s San Diego Studio Working To ‘Expand Existing PlayStation Franchises’

The last console generation was an interesting one and saw a lot of different trends and shifts in gaming come and go. One of the biggest things that did change, however, was Sony’s first party lineup reaching new levels. Regardless of what you may think of them, with titles like Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Part 2 to brand new IPs like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn, it seemed as if the company hit a goldmine one after the other. Now it seems one of their studios is working on some existing IPs in some mysterious capacity.

While you may not have heard of it, Sony actually has an as of now unnamed studio in San Deigo. While there has been rumors and murmurs about the new studio for quite some time, it was last year when we heard something solid about them when they enlisted some talent from other parts of Sony and then later in 2020 when it was basically confirmed they were an actual thing and still working on something.

Now people have discovered the LinkIn for Michael Mumbauer, who was the former Head and Senior Director of Visual Arts, who this studio is working with. His resume confirms the studio is working on some type of AAA project using a proprietary engine technology and expanding upon existing franchises (thanks to Wccftech for spotting and transcribing out the below)

“His latest achievement is having built a brand new, all-star, AAA Action/Adventure development team for Playstation. Based in San Diego and utilizing proprietary engine technology, this team was assembled to expand upon existing franchises and craft all-new stories for the next generation of gamers.”

There isn’t much here obviously, but it does seem to indicate that whatever they are working on is an existing IP and not a new franchise. The common speculation at this point is that they will be working on a new Uncharted title, but as of now, that doesn’t seem to be more than wishful thinking. However, there isn’t a lot of other franchises at the moment that isn’t taken unless Naughty Dog decide to do a new Uncharted themselves.

Sony has kept the studio under wraps officially, so it’s also hard to say for sure one way or another. Whatever it most likely is for PS5 as well. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see.