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Some seriously impressive sleuthing on ResetEra suggests Sony has signed English developer Ballistic Moon to create a PS5 exclusive. The Farnborough-based firm, founded in 2019, claims on its Linked In page that it’s working with a “world-leading publisher” on an exciting Unreal Engine 5 project. Earlier in the month, it posted up photographs of a motion capture session, and the actress – playing two different characters, Emily and Hannah – listed the work on her portfolio as Project Bates, published by none other than Sony Interactive Entertainment.

https://twitter.com/ballistic_moon/status/1557049079032594438

Fascinatingly, the director is listed as Joshua Archer, who has worked on games such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Until Dawn – both PlayStation exclusives, of course. It’s likely that this game is being overseen by Sony XDEV, the Liverpool-based unit responsible for exclusives developed outside of the PlayStation Studios family. It’s previously collaborated with teams such as Quantic Dream on titles like Detroit Become Human.

While the developer’s website is seriously impressive – we recommend you check it out – there’s very little information on what it’s actually working on. The studio’s founders – Neil McEwan, Chris Lamb, and Duncan Kershaw – have a fairly eclectic background, having worked on projects such as House of the Dead: Overkill and even Heavy Rain. The game is described as being in its “early stages”, and having “emotive” performances, however.

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Project Bates is listed as a project published by Sony Interactive Entertainment

As part of an MCV interview published in 2021, it’s reported that the team “were able to create and pitch out a strong concept and project which subsequently was signed off by a well-known publisher relatively quickly”. Co-founder Neil McEwan said: “We collectively want to create games which emotionally resonate with people, and mean something to them, not just something disposable which they move on from.”

Clearly the release isn’t ready to be announced just yet, but we’re impressed by the sheer amount of information compiled here – hats off to Toumari for putting it all together. It sounds like this could potentially be a narrative-driven adventure game, similar to The Quarry et al. Although, that’s just us making assumptions based on the back catalogue of some of the staff involved. The studio is hiring aggressively, though, and even mentions that it’s “relocating” soon.

A bigger office required, perhaps?

[source ballisticmoon.com, via linkedin.com, twitter.com, spotlight.com, imdb.com, mcvuk.com, resetera.com]