Former Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool devs unite to form Firesprite

Late last year Sony shuttered storied development house SCE Studio Liverpool, leaving a lot of folks who had worked on games like Wipeout out of a job. As you might expect, a fair number of them continued to spend time together and, according to a report from IGN, they eventually formed a new studio: Firesprite. Firesprite has already put in work helping Sony wrap up development on The Playroom, and now that it's shipped the young studio full of old hands is reportedly working on a new project with an internally-developed engine and toolset. Speaking to IGN, Firesprite Managing Director Graeme Ankers -- who previously worked on games like Formula One Championship Edition at Studio Liverpool -- said that Firesprite quickly came together as a "team of 20 people, 15 of which had been on the journey with us through the years at Studio Liverpool." Of course, the folks at Firesprite aren't the first Sony Liverpool survivors to start their own studio: back in January, four of their former coworkers came together to form Sawfly Studios. While there's no reason to expect that either studio will return to their old Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool franchises anytime soon -- Sony controls the rights, after all -- It's heartening to see developers working together and forming smaller, more independent companies in the wake of a big studio collapse.