EVE Online is a massive MMO that is still running strong, with a strong economy system entirely run by its players and the many stories of war, betrayal and deceit has spread outside of its game world to the bewilderment of many. Icelandic developers CCP has tried various way to branch the space MMO into a bigger universe of various games, and its latest take on that was VR spaceship shooter EVE Valkyrie.
Whilst being a strong showpiece in the early days of modern VR, EVE Valkyrie struggled to keep a healthy playerbase. In August last year the game was updated to make VR optional. But that was just delaying the inevitable. CCP has decided to let go of the the Newcastle studio that developed Valkyrie, as part of the developers pulling out of VR.
However, the Newcastle studio won’t be shutting down, but has been bought by UK-based Sumo Digital for an undisclosed amount. All 34 employees will be reporting under Owen O’Brien, Studio Director of Sumo Digital Newcastle.
Sumo Digital has a large portfolio of games. They are most notable for 2013’s classic Sega & All-Stars Racing Transformed as well as helped in Forza Horizon 3 and the latest Hitman.
More recently, the studio released Snake Pass, an inventive platformer and are developing three different projects: Crackdown 3, Dead Island 2 and another game with CCP titled Project Nova.