A new report from Bloomberg reveals that PlayStation has recently cancelled two unannounced live-service games, including one that was a live-service title from Bluepoint Games set in the God of War universe.
The other title was in development at Bend Studio, though there’s no word in the report on what that game might’ve been. These two games were said to be a part of the aggressive plans Sony laid out back in 2022, that they would have 12 live service games by the end of fiscal year ending in March 2026.
It was an aggressive push in live-service titles that we now know, also thanks to Bloomberg’s reporting, made those within PlayStation “uncomfortable.” PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida even confirmed just yesterday at time of writing, that he would “resist” that push, were it up to him.
That list of 12 games was cut in half, and then even the games that were left began to drop like flies.
Naughty Dog would cancel its live-service The Last Of Us multiplayer game. Then Concord would release and be cancelled in less than two weeks. A project from Bungie was reportedly cancelled.
Now add onto that Bluepoint and Bend’s projects, whatever they were. Bloomberg confirms that in the case of Bluepoint, this now-cancelled project was the one the studio had been working on for the last few years.
Bluepoint stipulated that what it was working on was an “original title,” while Bend said repeatedly it was working on an “original IP.” With Bluepoint having been working on something set in an established franchise, the difference in projects shows a bit of Sony’s strategy, to leverage both original and established IP.
A report from last March pointed to Bend Studio working on a live-service title, and now this report confirms that suspicion, though we’ve still no idea as to what the game might’ve been or looked like.
There’s no word as to whether or not these cancellations will bring about more layoffs, or worse, a full studio shutdown, but a spokesperson did say that Sony is “working closely with Bend and Bluepoint to determine what are the next projects and plan to do everything we can to ensure there is minimal business impact.”
Hopefully neither team is impacted with layoffs, but nothing can be sure when we’ve seen mass cuts from everyone, PlayStation included, for the last two years.
Source – [Bloomberg]
