New reports have emerged this morning claiming that Sony is interested in buying FromSoftware’s parent company Kadokawa. The move is far from official just yet, but both sides seem to be inching closer to a deal that could come about in the days or weeks ahead. If that happens, it could see FromSoftware partially controlled by PlayStation in a move that would be a net negative for the gaming industry as a whole.
Over the course of the past decade, FromSoftware has more or less become the most talented video game developer in the world. While other studios like Rockstar Games might carry a bit more name recognition (especially for those in the West), it’s hard to overlook what FromSoftware has accomplished in this span of time. Since 2014, FromSoftware has released like Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Elden Ring, and Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. From this lineup alone, the studio has won Game of the Year twice at The Game Awards and is now up for a third such honor this year for Elden Ring‘s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
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What’s been particularly great about this stretch that FromSoftware has been on is that all of its games have for the most part been playable across all platforms. Outside of Bloodborne, which was exclusive to PS4, every other aforementioned release has landed on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC hardware. Given the rampant consolidation that has been seen in the gaming industry last year, it has been a comfort to know that whenever FromSoftware comes out with a new game, it will almost certainly be easily accessible by players across all avenues.
Related: Dark Souls 3 Remaster Claimed to Be in the Works
Now, that seems to be in danger of being the case any longer if Sony were to purchase Kadokawa. While by no means a guarantee, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Sony use its newfound power over FromSoftware to try to add the company to its stable of developers at PlayStation Studios. Going off of how PlayStation has operated in the past, this would lead to FromSoftware potentially only making games for PS5 and whatever future consoles Sony will end up releasing.
Outside of simply belonging to Sony, the other issue that this scenario brings to a head is FromSoftware’s IP ownership. While FromSoftware does happen to own Elden Ring, Armored Core, and Sekiro, the same cannot be said for Dark Souls, which partially belongs to Bandai Namco. Despite having been largely left untouched since the release of Dark Souls III, FromSoftware becoming part of Sony would potentially end the studio’s ability to work on Dark Souls for good.
There’s also just the simple fact that PlayStation Studios has been a mess recently and isn’t the most ideal home for FromSoftware. In the past year alone, Sony has shut down London Studio and Firewalk Studio, the latter of which released 2024’s biggest commercial bomb in Concord. It has also overseen multiple rounds of layoffs at Bungie, which was by far Sony’s biggest previous acquisition to this point. To put it simply, PlayStation Studios is floundering and can’t properly manage what it already has on its plate. How would adding FromSoftware fix any of these problems that have so clearly emerged?
Of course, it can’t go without saying that the only silver lining to any of this would be that a version of FromSoftware under Sony would likely be able to work on Bloodborne and even Demon’s Souls once again. The longstanding dreams and requests from fans (myself included) for a Bloodborne remaster, remake, or even sequel would surely come to pass if Sony were to be in control of FromSoftware. Still, this trade-off isn’t one that I would be willing to make given all of the other downsides that would come about with such a move.
More so than anything else, I’m simply exhausted by the video game acquisitions that have become commonplace in recent years. Companies like Sony, Microsoft, and (at one point) Embracer have tried to enter this arms race against one another to snatch up talent at any cost. The result has seen pretty much nothing but layoffs and diminishing returns across the board outside of a couple of rare instances. Rather than see FromSoftware get mired down by the negatives that so many other studios have been plagued by as a result of being picked up by a larger corporation, it seems the far better option would be to just see FromSoft remain as it is.
