Sony Trademark for Xbox Exclusive Sunset Overdrive Discovered

A recently discovered trademark filing reveals that Sony may be planning to publish the 2014 action game Sunset Overdrive on the PlayStation. While the game was originally published by Microsoft, it’s owned by developers Insomniac Games, which was acquired by Sony in 2019.

The trademark was filed on April 26, according to the listing. The listing was spotted by my favorite Twitter source, Nibel. In case you didn’t remember, Sunset Overdrive was one of the few Xbox One launch exclusive titles. It was also one of the very few titles that legendary studio Insomniac Games developed for a console that was not a PlayStation. It was also released on PC in 2018. Insomniac is tied so inextricably with PlayStation that Sony acquiring the studio felt like a public acknowledgment of a relationship we were all already aware of.

Note that, like all trademark filings and patents, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Sunset Overdrive is definitely bringing the game to PlayStation. There have been a couple of hints in that direction, with Drew Murray, one of the game’s directors, returning to Insomniac after a stint with The Initiative, the studio currently working on the new Perfect Dark game. Insomniac’s CEO has previously said they’d be interested in making a sequel to the game if they could find a new partner that wasn’t Xbox.

It also doesn’t necessarily mean that a sequel is in the works — though it’s fun to speculate that that might be the case. I’d be curious, if a sequel did happen, to see if they bring back Yuri Lowenthal as the player character. He already plays Spider-Man in another Insomniac title, so it’s not as though they don’t have his number on speed dial. However, don’t get excited yet — Sony Interactive Entertainment chair Shawn Layden said after the acquisition in 2019 that Sony wasn’t prioritizing Sunset Overdrive 2.

Source: VGC