It looks like Sony has grown tired of just having one video game company, after selling Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Studios) a couple of years ago. Sony Music Entertainment is now throwing its hat in the ring, announcing the launch of its own publishing label, Unties.
It sounds like Unties will publish indie games that have maybe slipped through the cracks. Here’s what Sony Music Entertainment has to say about it:
“With the growth of game development environments, high quality game development has become possible even in small scale environments, and the evolution of digital publishing has made it easier to distribute developed titles to users worldwide. On the other hand, with a mixed bag of titles overflowing the market, there are also situations where interesting titles are buried without being noticed.
“At Unties, we dig up the masterpieces buried in those situations, and support them so that more users notice and pick them up. We spread information about excellent games and sell titles for multiple platforms.
“The name ‘Unties’ comes from the thought ‘to unleash the excellent talents of unique game creators all over the world’ and ‘setting creators free from the various shackles of game publishing,’ named from the intention of realizing publishing that is freedom of production without restraints.”
So far, Unties has announced four games that it’s publishing, and three of them are heading to PC.
First off, there’s turn-based tactics romp Tiny Metal, and judging from the trailer below it’s a lot like Advance Wars, with cute little tanks fighting over grid-based maps. Even the commander in the trailer looks straight out of Advance Wars. It’s due out on November 21.
Last Standard, which doesn’t have a release date, is a 3D action game with a pretty dull trailer. But it actually seems pretty interesting… if baffling. Weapons will be generated by the ‘Psycho Drive’ system, which analyses players’ social media accounts. I haven’t the foggiest how pictures of my dog, bad jokes and video game hot takes will be weaponised—it sounds terrifying.
And then there’s Merkava Avalanche, an unusual looking mix of mech-on-mech violence and high-speed chases across the desert. No release date yet.
It’s a pretty diverse batch of games, though they do share one thing: they were all on Steam Greenlight. There are certainly worse places to find overlooked games to publish. Unties will also publish games for PS4, VR and Switch.
Cheers, Gematsu.