Superhit game Returnal’s PS5 version has an Indian connect

Lakshya, India’s leading game art and animation services company, has recently developed and created art and animation for the popular global hit PS5 game title ‘Returnal’.

Returnal is Sony PlayStation 5’s exclusive game from the house of Finland-based game developer- Housemarque. It is a hard-hitting third-person shooter rogue-like video game that puts the gamer’s capability with the controller to test with spontaneous decisions of fight or flight. The player starts with a basic pistol but quickly discovers other weapons. The more the player uses a weapon, the more weapon proficiency increases, and this applies to each weapon class. Returnal is the best PS5 exclusive so far and is at top of every gamer’s list.

Speaking on the collaboration with Lakshya, Niko Mäkelä, Art Manager, Housemarque, said, “Lakshya joined us quite early in production of Returnal for Playstation 5, expanding our reach in rigging and animating a wide range of in-game creatures. Lakshya created a good number of props and key environment assets in 2020. Most of the latter were epic in size but still detailed. Through our collaboration, we were able to find common grounds and atmosphere of shared investment and responsibility. Our contact points at Lakshya were cordial, attentive, and quick to react to changing requirements or course correction.”

Gurugram headquartered Lakshya started working on the Returnal project in 2018 and has created several environment pieces and props for the game. Lakshya has also worked on character animation and rigging.

Manvendra Shukul, Founder, Lakshya, said, “It was very exciting to work on a hugely popular global game like Returnal. The project brought out the true expertise of Lakshya team in creating props, including key environment props, rigging and animation of creatures. With the addition of our Bengaluru studio at the beginning of this year, we are looking forward to continuing to contribute to more such cutting-edge global game titles in future as well.”

Lakshya is a leading game art studio in India that works for major game developers like Sony, Microsoft etc. and is one of the few companies globally to have six game development teams globally. Lakshya has presence in Gurugram, Bengaluru and Pune in India, Seattle in USA, Tokyo in Japan, and London in UK. With the leadership team in place, the new Bengaluru studio began operations in March 2021.

With India emerging as a key game development services destination, Lakshya, one of the very first game development services companies in the country, has worked on several popular global games like State of Decay, Just Cause 3, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Dauntless, Nier Automata, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Sea of Thieves and Last Stop, which is yet to be launched. The online gaming segment is estimated to be a $1.1 billion opportunity by this year, according to Google-KPMG. By then, India is expected to have more than 190 million gamers.