Sony Shuts Down Team Liverpool – An End To WipEout And Psygnosis

15 january 2013

The announcement today that World Wide Sony Entertainment Liverpool, the Sony-owned British studio responsible for the popular WipEout franchise, brings down the curtain on one of Britain’s longest-lived studios, with roots going back to the 8-bit age of computing.

The iconic Psygnosis logo, designed by prog rock album cover legend Roger Dean

As Psygnosis, WWSE Liverpool published legendary games including Barbarian and Shadow of the Beast, although PC gamers may remember it best for publishing the sempiternal Lemmings.

Since the acquisition by Sony in 1993, which dropped the “Psygnosis” name in 1999, WWSE Liverpool was known primarily for its work on the Formula One, Colony Wars and, particularly, WipEout franchises. A futuristic racing game with anti-gravity and combat elements, WipEout remained present and popular through the PlayStation generations – WipEout HD was among the games made available to PlayStation Network members after the lengthy service outage of 2011.

(Update – anyone who wants to spend 20 minutes wallowing in nostalgia could do a lot worse than this YouTube compilation of the WipEout games by HellfireWZ, spotted by Twitter user @cunabula)

However, work on new titles at WWSE Liverpool had been significantly cut back in 2010, and today’s announcement ends a 28-year history.

Sony’s official statement (edited for length) said:

As part of SCE Worldwide Studios, we do regular reviews to ensure that the resources we have can create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects in an increasingly competitive market place.  As part of this process, we have reviewed and assessed all current and planned projects for the short and medium term and have decided to make some changes to our European Studios.

It has been decided that Liverpool Studio should be closed.  Liverpool Studio has been an important part of SCE Worldwide Studios since the outset of PlayStation, and have contributed greatly to PlayStation over the years. Everyone connected with Liverpool Studio, past and present, can be very proud of their achievements.

However, it was felt that by focusing our investment plans on other Studios that are currently working on exciting new projects, we would be in a stronger position to offer the best possible content for our consumers.

Speaking with me after the announcement, a Sony representative was eager to make clear that the Liverpool campus will remain open and Sony-run, and will continue to house Sony Computer Entertainment World Wide Studios Europe’s quality assurance, external development, localization and finance services. Attempts will be made to find jobs for some WWSE Liverpool employees within these departments, and also in other Sony studios, but redundancies are inevitable.

Unnamed sources suggested that at the time of its closure WWSE was working on two games for Sony’s next-generation console, one a successor to WipEout and one an espionage game in the style of Splinter Cell. These projects have presumably been cancelled along with the studio’s closure, meaning the PS4 will be the first PlayStation console without a WipEout game – the last one being this year’s well-received WipEout 2048 on the PS Vita.