The end of Psygnosis and Studio Liverpool

While I'm aware that the Psygnosis name has not been in use for over a decade I felt it appropriate for the headline of this article that deals with one of the most important studios in the British video game history it's transformation to Studio Liverpool and its recent closure.

Psygnosis was an odd company right from the start, founded in 1984 it was perhaps more of a publisher than a developer, even if the distinction wasn't as clear between the two as it is today. Best known for being a stalwart during the Amiga days - Psygnosis were responsible for publishing such classics as Lemmings (DMA Design) and Shadow of the Beast (Reflections). And in 1993, the company was picked up by Sony which led to a rapid expansion with new offices establishes in various locations around the globe.

Psygnosis played an integral part in helping Sony capture and eventually dominating the console space as they made an early mark on the original Playstation with G-Police, Colony Wars, and Wipeout.

In the mid 90's Psygnosis was synonomous with club music, edgy cool design, and was a big part of making Playstation the avantgarde console. Sure polygons, Gran Turismo and Lara Croft also had something to do with it, but Wipeout was somehow the perfect storm of the Playstation era.

There was something special about the amount of effort that had gone into design of a seemingly simple thing like the logos of the Anti-Gravity Racing League teams. Attention to detail.

Over the years, Sony have been known to have a quite sprawling organisation with various entities being run independently of each other, and in a reorganisation in 2001 meant to help create more synergies - Psygnosis was folded into Sony Computer Entertainment Europe as a whole, the publishing arm dismantled, and the Liverpool studio renamed SCE Studio Liverpool, other Psygnosis studios such as Camden and Stroud were also folded into the SCEE organisation and eventually swallowed up. Today, it may seem odd but even with Psygnosis coming under Sony ownership as early as 1993 it wasn't until the late 90's that Psygnosis stopped releasing games on competing platforms. Even if there is a lot more than just brilliance and independence behind that, it stands as a monument of sort of their independence.

Meanwhile, SCE Studio Liverpool managed to carve out a rather important niche for themselves in the Sony empire. Their first title as SCE Studio Liverpool was 2001's Formula 1 on Playstation 2 - a game that was well received and the developer kept on working on the franchise for as long as Sony held the license. Prior to developing F1 game themselves Psygnosis had been publishing F1 titles developed by Bizarre Creations, another recent victim of the British developer death.

In parallel they worked on various installation in the Wipeout franchise, although it must be said that the series found it more and more difficult with every year to attract the same kind of following as it had during the days of the original Playstation. Was futuristic racing a thing of the past?

The very first Wipeout game, released in 1995 on Playstation, featured designed by The Designers Republic, an add reversal of the tactics employed by Psygnosis during the early days when they often had in-house artists helping out with visuals on games made by external programmers. It also featured a memorable soundtrack by Tim Wright and various licensed artists including The Chemical Brothers and Orbital. As a reflection of the Sony owned publishers independancy at the time, it was also released on PC and Saturn ('96).

The legacy of Psygnosis and Studio Liverpool is that of a creative mesh artistry whether it was visual or musical, it stood out from the crowd and had mark of quality that won't easily carry over to the next studio charged with creating a title in the Wipeout series. Whether or not that air of creativity was already something of the past long before the doors of Studio Liverpool closed is beside the point as the closure marks the end of the philosophy that once built Psygnosis and later carried over to SCE Studio Liverpool.

It's up to other British studios to carry that torch, and create cross over appeal in the same way Psygnosis did with The Designer Republic, Tim Wright, and The Chemical Brothers did for Wipeout. It was a different time back then, but as most such video game collaborations these days feel more disengious and manufactured with sales synergies in mind, the closure of Studio Liverpool provides us with a reminder that collaborating just for the sake of creating something special can often prove very successful.

The end of Studio Liverpool wasn't very graceful. Several projects were cancelled over the last couple of years, and it has been reported the studio were working at two Playstation 4 projects at the time of the closure. And while Wipeout HD may serve as a blueprint for how to handle classic properties in this brave, new digital age, the ambitious cross platform functionality with PS Vita's Wipeout 2048 never fully got the appreciation it deserved.

Ultimately, Studio Liverpool was a one franchise studio and that franchise was losing steam. A strange fate for what was originally a hotbed of creativity and artistic vision.

The British industry landscape is a shade paler this week, but as always when these kind of things happen. It may be the end of a studio, but the developers will find new outlets for their talents and hopefully some of them will carry on the spirit of Psygnosis elsewhere. In fact, given the sprawling nature of Psygnosis and later SCE Studio Liverpool and the numerous collaborations, off shoots, and sister studios, it's hard to imagine any more than a couple of degrees of separation from any British game development studio that is active to this day.

If there's one thing we can take away from the late Studio Liverpool it's that there is no point in braking when racing for the future.