Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media meant that some potential PlayStation ports prematurely got the axe. However, Hi-Fi Rush wasn’t one of those titles since it never had a PS5 version to begin with.
There was apparently no Hi-Fi Rush PS5 port in the works
According to an interview with GameSpot, game director John Johanas explained that Tango Gameworks’ plans weren’t altered with 2023’s surprising rhythm-based action game. There wasn’t a Hi-Fi Rush PS5 version to cancel because it didn’t exist, even though Microsoft didn’t buy the studio until Hi-Fi Rush was late in development.
“[The team was] undecided on platforms right as this was happening, and then it was like, ‘Okay, Xbox, that was easy.'” said Johanas. “It’s not that we had something working, and we just shelved it or anything like that. Legitimately, there was no change. We just kept making it, and we didn’t get any feedback from Microsoft in the sense of changing something. At that point, realistically, our game was pretty much solidified into what it was. It was kind of finishing it up, and everyone who saw it thought it looked cool.”
This stands in contrast to other Bethesda Softworks titles. Redfall’s PS5 version was supposedly canceled according to its co-director Harvey Smith (although a Microsoft spokesperson claims Xbox didn’t “[pull] any games from PlayStation”). MachineGames’ mysterious Indiana Jones game also lost its PlayStation version after the Microsoft acquisition.
PS5 versions of other Microsoft games currently in production are still in the air. Decisions on The Outer Worlds 2 and The Elder Scrolls 6 come top PS5 have apparently not been made yet, as Microsoft claims to not want to make previous multiplatform franchises exclusive to one console.
