It has been reported that Sony has canceled two unannounced Live-Service games that were in development. These two games were being developed by Days Gone developer Bend Studio and Demon Souls Remake developer Bluepoint Games respectively.
Bloomberg reported that Sony had ended production on these two games, with the Bluepoint title being a God of War title, though no details have been given to that. the Bend Studio title has not, as of yet, been identified if it ever will. Previous rumors had the studio developing a Men in Black game, though whether that was the live-service game, another title altogether, or not accurate at all, remains to be seen.
A Sony spokesman confirmed these titles were canceled to Bloomberg. Sony made sure to add there would be no studio closures on the back of this news and they planned to “determine what are the next projects.” It should be noted that Bluepoint has at least one other game in development, a single-player new IP.
This marks a continuation of Sony’s ambitious, yet mostly unfruitful, push into the live-service space they had announced back in 2022. Sony acquired Destiny developer Bungie and announced a plan to release at least 12 live-service titles in operation before the close of 2025. This plan hit a major inflection point last year when the reportedly $400 million dollar game Concord released, only staying operational for 2 weeks before the servers were shut down. Soon after Firewalk Studio, the developer of Concord, was closed
Sony revised their number down to six titles, a number that very well could have included these two games. Canceled projects include a Last of Us multiplayer title, a Spider-Man co-op game, and a third-person Destiny spin-off. Two titles that remain in development are Fairgames, being developed by Haven Studios, as well as Bungie’s Marathon. Given that Bungie had also suffered many lay-offs over the last year, as well as seen Sony take more oversight, it remains to be seen if this title is near the chopping block. The only live-service title Sony has published that saw success was Helldivers II, released early last year and going on to receive multiple awards.
Sony is clearly rethinking the investment that only a few years ago was something they felt strongly about, but given how Concord turned out it does make sense. Sony and PlayStation have become well-known over the last few generations for strong narrative-driven exclusives, with this path clearly feeling at odds with their consumers of what they want out of the platform.
There have been rumors as well that the popular PlayStation-exclusive Horizon, about hunting mech-like dinosaurs, also has a live-service title in development.
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