Sony Interactive Entertainment is picking up yet another developer just as 2021 ends. Valkyrie Entertainment, co-developer on God of War 2018, joins PlayStation Studios as the 17th studio and will continue work on some of Sony’s key franchises.
Originally founded in 2002, Valkyrie Entertainment’s AAA experience extends beyond just PlayStation titles. They’ve provided support to other games like this year’s Halo Infinite, Valorant, League of Legends, and Forza Motorsport 7. The Seattle-based developer’s God of War credits also include more than the 2018 PS4 release. On Twitter, Valkyrie Entertainment announced the team would continue working with new colleagues at Sony Santa Monica on the upcoming God of War Ragnarok.
This year has been a busy one for Sony’s video game studio acquisitions. Valkyrie Entertainment joins the 2021 list of other recent PlayStation developers like Bluepoint Games, Fabrik Games, Firesprite, Housemarque, and Nixxes Software. While Sony’s studio acquisitions weren’t the biggest surprise, the company also added the Evolution fighting game tournament, or EVO, to its portfolio. Anime streaming service Crunchyroll is another recent acquisition picked up for $1 billion, and a new report indicates the company may be planning to bundle Crunchyroll with PlayStation Plus.
Sony’s last major purchase before the 2021 surge was Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac Games in 2019, which had a long history of working with the publisher beforehand. The race to pick up talent between mega-corporations like Microsoft and Sony shows no sign of slowing down, either. In September, VGC reported on comments from Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra, who thinks “the next area of consolidation will be the games business” as mergers and acquisitions in other mediums peak.
