Are Sony About To Resurrect Psygnosis?

Tuffcub 23 Comments

Psygnosis is a publisher that many older gamers will remember fondly, from their 16-bit shooters Awesome and Blood Money to the PlayStation classics Colony Wars, G-Police and WipEout.

The number of classic games the company published is quite staggering and includes Lemmings, The Killing Game Show, Destruction Derby, Amour-Geddon, Walker and Rollcage, and who can forget Agony, the worlds first shoot ’em up featuring an Owl, a video of which you can see above.

In 1999 the publishing branch of the company was merged into Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Psygnosis was gone, renamed as Sony’s Studio Liverpool, a team who worked solely on the WipEout franchise until their closure in August last year

Now the interesting part; Sony has registered the trademark for Psygnosis, the reasons for which are unclear but it may have something do a certain PlayStation 4 game, namely Shadow of the Beast, a title that was originally published by the company.

psygn

The Psygnosis brand was famous for pushing technical boundaries (Shadow of the Beast was considered revolutionary due to the layers of parallax scrolling), pre-rendered ray traced intro movies, Roger Dean artwork, and rather hefty prices – Shadow Of The Best cost a whopping £35 back in 1989 which is around £75 in today’s money.

Could Sony be bringing the label back to showcase the power of the PS4, perhaps as a premium label for games that really push the console? If so, can we finally have a new version of G-Police please Sony? Perhaps bundled with PS4 VR headest next year?

Of course this may just be some legal requirement that allows Sony to retain copyright to older titles, again this may be linked to new version of Shadow of the Beast, but with such a huge library of classic games it would be a shame if the name was re-registered just because a lawyer required it.

 Source: NeoGAF

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23 Comments

  1. I <3 Destruction Derby! The pitstops where you had to button bash out the damage on the car!

    • The D Derby games were real fun but also could be very frustrating, like getting T-boned at a crossing on the last lap while leading.

    • Watch out for the barriers they’ll only slow you down!

  2. I just hope that they do actually revive the studio and that, was not only for trademark usage. Some of the best games i’ve ever played in the PS1 era come from PSYGNOSIS. Wipeout, Destruction Derby, F1, Colony Wars…the list is endless.

    Sony make it happen!!!

  3. Oh, still? Could you please unban me ?

    • It doesn’t seem to like your comments :-(

  4. I loved Rollcage!

    • Roll cage 2 was the utter business. The challenge mode thing took so many hours off of me.

      • I didn’t even knew there had been a sequel :p
        I do remember hoping battle cars something something (the game has a huge title) for PS3 would be the new Rollcage and being highly disappointed though :)

      • Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket powered Battle cars.

      • Stage 2 was indeed amazing! Could we finally see Stage 3?

  5. I hope they do do something with this. Love a Killing Game Show for Vita…

  6. PS4 Wipeout.

    http://goo.gl/q76DXQ (doit.gif)

  7. Hope they do. Psygnosis is pretty much my childhood

  8. I was thrilled by the unexpected announcement of the new Shadow of the Beast, so I really hope they do this. More please!

    PS – I ‘m pretty sure it was “Blood Money”.

  9. I want another Colony Wars!!!

  10. Wipeout and Rollcage, the two best racers I’ve ever played.

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