Console Developers I'd Love To See Working On PC

There have been some unusual and unexpected ports in recent times. I'd never expected to see Deadly Premonition in my Steam library and Way of the Samurai 4 was something of a surprise. Strangest of all, perhaps, is that I've not only become accustomed to the presence of Metal Gear Solid V on PC, but that its stealthy immersive sim-feel has made it an integral part of 2015. Aspects of the design will become part of the fabric of future open world games, whether stealth-focused or not, and there's nothing about the game that marks it out as a port.

Without further ado, here are three developers I'd love to see working on PC.

Naughty Dog

Kojima Studios turned out to be a natural fit but what about other developers we tend to think of as working on the other side of the PC-console divide? No company defined Playstation exclusivity in the PS3 era better than Naughty Dog: three Uncharted games that covered everything brilliant and reductive about the team's blockbuster approach to action games, plus a horrific take on the post-society road movie in The Last of Us. Last Friday, Naughty Dog Creative Director Neil Druckmann mentioned a license he'd like to work with in a tweet.

I think Half Life and Naughty Dog would be comfortable bedfellows. Sure, the immediate response might be one of incredulity and eye-bulging horror, but Valve's two Freeman-fronted games did almost as much for linear, plot-heavy action gaming as Naughty Dog's later contributions to the field. Forget Half Life 3 though because I neither want Gordon to start with the wisecracks nor Naughty Dog to work with a silent protagonist - let's a have a spin-off starring Alyx or some new Resistance member. Hell, call it Half Life: Resistance and make it a blend of the light-hearted escapades of Uncharted and the horror of the early Combine crackdowns and control programs.

Project Siren

The studio formerly known as Project Siren is now known as Team Gravity. That's because they've moved on from the Forbidden Siren series after three entries and were last seen considering a sequel to their Vita release Gravity Rush. I haven't played that game but I've spent hours cowering in the presence of the Siren games. There has never been a better combination of stealth and survival horror mechanics, and scenes from the first game and "reimagined re-release" Blood Curse have added themselves to the stack of nightmare fuel that I keep by the dark cabin at the back of my mind.

Written and directed by the creator of Silent Hill, Keiichirō Toyama, the Siren games used a novel mechanic called Sight-Jacking to scare me into a sleepless state. It's a concept so brilliant that I'm surprised it hasn't been copied and just thinking about the static that bursts across the screen makes me feel anxious. Essentially, your character can utilise the senses of other living things - you rotate a thumbstick like a radio dial and if it points at a nearby person or creature, you see through the target's eyes and hear through its ears. That means you can track the location of enemies - hideous puppet-like parodies of humanity called Shibito - by working out their position based on what they can see.

It also means you can see them hammering at walls and whispering gibberish threats, or hacking at the air with a knife as they hunt you. And, yes, you can see your final seconds through the eyes of the thing that murders you. With the Siren series seemingly on hold, it'd be great to see the most recent game ported across to PC, perhaps laying the ground for the next release.

Keita Takahashi

Katamari-creator Keita Takahashi has expressed an interest in creating a children's playground and such a project almost came to be as part of a collaboration with Nottingham City Council. I hope he just carries on making playgrounds for everyone. On computers. On my computer, so that I can play in the playground.

Noby Noby Boy delighted me for minutes at a time over a period of two years. One time, a house-mate saw me playing it and had to leave the room because it gave him the creeps in a way that he struggled to articulate. Most people don't react like that though - they're happy to stretch, squirm and slingshot animals off the edge of the world. Perhaps fear is an appropriate response.

I'd love to see a Takahashi playground on PC so that it could have some kind of user input in the form of extra items through a Steam Workshop kind of deal, or full on modding support.

(it is at this point that Alice reminds me that Wild Rumpus affiliated Tenya Wanya Teens is available on PC - "I mean, we haven't released it. And may never. And you need controllers that cost £200 to make. But it's on PC!!!")

Of all the developers yet to grace the PC with their presence, or those who only visit rarely, who would you most like to see dabbling in development away from their console-y homes?

This feature was originally published as part of, and thanks to, the RPS supporter program.