Shinra Technologies has announced that Human Head Studios (of Prey fame) will be joining its joining its Prototype Accelerator program. While the partnership hasn’t yielded any formal game announcement, the Wisconsin-based studio seems to be working on, or at least researching, a multiplayer game that takes advantage of Shinra’s streaming platform.
Human Head co-founder and Creative Director Ted Halsted: “Our team is passionate about multiplayer and Shinra’s unique platform gives our engineers and designers the ability to develop new and ground-breaking gameplay."
On the face of things, this new partnership doesn’t seem particularly mobile-relevant. However, Square Enix—which owns Shinra and its technology—are clearly interested in the possibility of streaming console games to iOS: just last month, they launched a cloud-based version of Final Fantasy XIII on the Japanese App Store. Human Head, meanwhile, is the team behind Lost Within ($3.99), a new iOS horror game that earned a cool four stars from out very own Carter Dotson.
(The studio also released a free-to-play shooting gallery game called Fort Courage (Free) back in 2012 that I wasn’t aware of, a relic of the App Store’s heady halcyon days.)
Earlier this year, Shinra announced similar partnerships with Camouflaj and Hardsuit Labs. Camouflaj, of course, made the mobile stealth adventure République (Free), and the Hardsuit guys are recently responsible for Blacklight Retribution, a free-to-play shooter on PC and PlayStation 4.
Point is, Shinra is clearly interested in developers that have experience developing and monetizing flashy, big-budget mobile games.
This isn’t definitive proof that Human Head, Camouflaj, or anyone else is working on streaming iOS games for Shinra. However, it’s enough to keep an eye on, especially given Square Enix’ plans pivot away from consoles and toward smartphones.
Prey 2, meanwhile, is still cancelled. Bummer.
