Sony has cancelled two live-service titles that had been being developed by Bend Studio and Bluepoint Video games.
The new was broken by gaming pundit Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg, after which apparently confirmed by Sony themselves who confirmed that two “live-service” initiatives had been cancelled “following a current evaluate”.
“Bend and Bluepoint are extremely completed groups who’re valued members of the PlayStation Studios household, and we’re working intently with every studio to find out what are the following initiatives,” the spokesperson instructed Bloomberg.
On Bluesky, Schreier provided additional particulars, stating that the cancelled live-service recreation at Bluepoint was actually a God of War game.
“Followers have lengthy puzzled what Bluepoint has been engaged on for the final couple of years. I can report it was a live-service God of Conflict recreation.” mentioned Jason.
Sony introduced plans in 2022 to have 12 live-service video games working by 2025, however would later convey that quantity down to six. Helldivers 2 launched in 2024 and was an enormous success, and nonetheless attracts nice numbers. In fact, Concord additionally launched final yr and was an unmitigated catastrophe that misplaced Sony lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}. If we depend these two and now the cancelled initiatives, that may imply Sony is down to 2 live-service initiatives left. Presumably, these are Bungie’s upcoming Marathon and Haven Studios’ PvP recreation.
As for earlier live-service initiatives, there was a rumoured Spider-Man title based around the multi-verse which was apparently canned, together with Naughty Canine’s The Final of Us multiplayer title. That one was purported to have been axed when Bungie provided feedback suggesting it wasn’t up to snuff. A live-service Twisted Metallic recreation was additionally cancelled again in 2023 when Firesprite confronted layoffs.
Out of all this, it’s Bend Studio I really feel probably the most sorry for. Their pitch for a Days Gone sequel was denied by Sony. They revealed in 2021 that they had been engaged on a brand new IP. If that was the identical recreation that was cancelled then that’s 4 years of labor down the drain. If that’s the case and if it’s the one undertaking they’ve been engaged on, the prolonged triple-A growth occasions imply it will doubtless be 3-6 years till they get an opportunity to launch one thing else. Their final recreation was the underrated Days Gone in 2019, that means Bend Studio may find yourself going a whole console technology with out releasing a single undertaking.
The success of video games like Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals reveals that corporations completely ought to no less than experiment and discover the live-service area, however it’s fairly clear that it isn’t an space the place we
