Niko Partners’ senior analyst Daniel Ahmad has revealed that Chinese giant Tencent has acquired a 10 percent minority stake in Lost Soul Aside developer, UltiZero Games. Details of the deal have not been made public by either of the companies at the time of this writing, but Ahmad said that Lost Soul Aside‘s development is “progressing well.”
“Tencent has been increasing its M&A activity in the HD console game space, acquiring both minority and majority stakes in console game developers both in China and overseas,” Ahmad tweeted. “It has also invested in a number of Chinese console game devs, including the devs behind Sinner.”
Lost Soul Aside is the only known project that UltiZero Games is working on. The project was initiated by then lone developer Yang Bing, who was inspired by Final Fantasy XV. He released a demo on YouTube, which went viral and attracted attention from a number of companies including Sony. It was ultimately Sony that picked up the project as a timed PlayStation 4 exclusive as part of its “China Hero Project” initiative. Little has been heard and seen of the game since then with the exception of a trailer and a statement from Bing, in which he mentioned that he would like to release Lost Soul Aside before the end of 2020. However, the pandemic threw a spanner in the works.
At the moment, Lost Soul Aside‘s development status is unclear. Neither Sony nor UltiZero Games has said whether it’s still a timed PlayStation exclusive and if it’s still in development for the last-gen console.
[Source: Twitter]