Sumo Digital is refocusing all efforts to become a support studio and abandons all work on own IP's

It may not sound like a big change, but Sumo Digital announced today that they have decided to stop all development of their own games. Instead, they will now work exclusively as an auxiliary studio and develop for others.

While this may sound drastic, the studio hasn't delivered many major original projects over the years (the mediocre Snake Pass is one of the few exceptions). However, VGC writes that "multiple original projects were recently in development at the company", which will now be discontinued as a result of today's announcement.

Sumo Digital is best known for all the great titles they have developed together with Sega, such as Sega Superstars Tennis and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. However, they have also developed Crackdown 3 with Xbox Game Studios as well as Little Big Planet 3 and Sackboy: A Big Adventure on behalf of Sony to name a few other examples. So, to summarise today's decision, Sumo Digital will focus on what it does best.

Unfortunately, the changes will mean that some people will lose their jobs, and it should be remembered that 15% of the workforce - up to 250 people - had to go already in 2024. The studio writes:

"Unavoidably this transition will have an impact on our studios and people. We are committed to minimising this impact as much as possible, exploring all options to retain talent, and supporting those affected with transparency, care, and compassion."

We're keeping our fingers crossed that as few as possible will be affected, but at the same time we're happy that Sumo Digital is sticking around, and we look forward to their future games. We certainly wouldn't mind a sequel to Sega Superstars Tennis or for that matter Virtua Tennis - a series Sumo has also worked on before.