Sony has canceled two live service titles being developed by Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games.
This new news was broken by Bloomberg’s gaming expert Jason Schreier and appears to have been confirmed by Sony themselves. Sony has confirmed that two “live service” projects have been canceled “following a recent review”.
“Bend and Bluepoint are exceptional teams who are valued members of the PlayStation Studios family, and we are working closely with each studio to determine what their next projects should be,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg.
At Bluesky, Schreier provided additional details, saying that the live service game canceled by Bluepoint was actually a God of War game.
“Fans have long wondered what Bluepoint has been working on over the years. “I can report that it was a God of War game available as a live service.” Jason said.
Sony announced in 2022 plans to operate 12 live service games by 2025, but later reduced that number to six. Helldivers 2 was released in 2024 and was a huge success and is still pulling in huge numbers. Of course, Concorde was also released last year and was a complete disaster, costing Sony hundreds of millions of dollars. These two plus the canceled projects mean there are only two projects left for Sony’s live service. Perhaps this is Bungie’s upcoming Marathon and Haven Studios’ PvP game.
As for the previous live service project, it was rumored to be a Spider-Man title based in the apparently canned multiverse alongside Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer title. When Bungie provided feedback that it was inappropriate, the item had to be removed. With Firesprite facing layoffs, the live service Twisted Metal game has also been canceled for 2023.
The most disappointing thing among them is Bend Studio. Their proposal for a Days Gone sequel was rejected by Sony. They revealed that they are working on a new IP for 2021. If it had been the same game that was canceled, it would have taken four years of work. If this is true, and that’s the only project they’ve been working on, the long triple-A development time means it’s likely to be three to six years before they get a chance to release anything else. Their last game was 2019’s underrated Days Gone. This means that Bend Studio may end up going through an entire console generation without releasing a single project.
The success of games like Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals shows that companies should at least experiment and explore the live services space. But it’s pretty clear that that’s not our area.
