We’ve seen both Microsoft and Sony use their abundance of cash to scoop up game developers and add them to their first-party studios. That’s exactly what the latter did this morning, as Sony has announced its acquisition of Housemarque, the team behind Returnal. Housemarque will now operate under the PlayStation Studios banner.

Sony announced its acquisition of Housemarque in a post to the PlayStation Blog. Ilari Kuittinen, the Co-founder and Managing Director of Housemarque penned an open letter about joining PlayStation Studios.

“We are so excited to finally join the PlayStation Studios family! This gives our studio a clear future and a stable opportunity to continue delivering on gameplay centric approaches, while still experimenting with new methods of narrative delivery and pushing the boundaries of this modern art form. Locally here in Helsinki, this also means that we will officially expand the PlayStation family to a growing industry hub and secure the legacy of the oldest game studio in Finland.”

Housemarque most recently released Returnal earlier this year as a PS5 exclusive. The developer was also behind Nex Machina and Resogun. As a part of the PlayStation Studios family, Housemarque will exclusively develop games for Sony’s line of consoles. We recently saw Sony acquire Insomniac Games, the developers behind Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.

Sony cites the success of Returnal as one of the driving forces behind the decision to acquire the studio.