Sunset Overdrive Dev Wants to Bring Game to PC, But Microsoft Gets to Make the Call

Developer Insomniac Games said today that it would like to bring its over-the-top action game Sunset Overdrive to PC, but the decision is not up to the studio.

Instead, Microsoft gets to make that call, according to Insomniac. "We'd love it if it could happen but [the] ball is in Xbox's court on it," the developer said to a fan today on Twitter. To another person, the developer said, "We'd love for it to come to PC, though it's up to Xbox on that one."

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Sunset Overdrive was released in October 2014 for Xbox One. Part of the reason why Insomniac decided to make it an Xbox One-exclusive was because Microsoft reportedly allowed the studio to own the rights to the Sunset Overdrive franchise. By comparison, it doesn't own some of the brands that it is most closely associated with, including Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance.

It's not immediately clear why Insomniac wouldn't be able to do what it wants with its own franchise in the case of Sunset Overdrive and bringing it to PC. Microsoft being the publisher likely means that it gets to call the shots about where the game is released, while Insomniac could make more games in the series if it wanted to. We have followed up with Microsoft in an attempt to get more details.

In September 2014, Insomniac said it had no plans to bring the game to PC, but has not ruled out a release for computers sometime down the road.

"I don't know what the future holds," Insomniac Games marketing lead James Stevenson said at the time. "Right now there's no plans for a PC version of the game. We're just working hard to finish up [the Xbox One version]. We're going to support it post-launch and then we'll see what happens in the future. But there's no plans. We aren't planning a PC version or anything like that."

An advertisement stating that Sunset Overdrive was coming to PC emerged just days before the game came out in 2014, but Microsoft confirmed this was a "simple mistake."

If Sunset Overdrive does one day make its way to PC, it won't be the first Xbox One game to make the jump. Launch titles Ryse: Son of Rome and Dead Rising 3 did the same.

As for what Insomniac is working on now, the studio has three Oculus Rift games on the way, including Edge of Nowhere, The Unspoken, and Feral Rites. The independent studio, which has offices in North Carolina and California, is also working on a new Spider-Man game for PlayStation 4.