Bend Studio, the developer behind Days Gone, remains committed to creating exciting new projects despite Sony's cancellation of its unannounced live-service game. This follows Sony's recent decision to scrap two unannounced live-service titles, one reportedly a God of War game from Bluepoint Games, and another from Bend Studio. While neither studio will be closed, Sony is reevaluating its approach to live-service games.
Sony's foray into the live-service market has been uneven. The resounding success of Helldivers 2, a PlayStation Studios record-breaker with 12 million copies sold in 12 weeks, stands in stark contrast to the failures of other ventures. The disastrous launch and subsequent closure of Concord highlighted significant challenges. This follows the earlier cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida even voiced his reservations about Sony's aggressive live-service strategy.
Bend Studio's community manager, Kevin McAllister, reassured fans with a simple yet confident message: "We still plan on creating cool shit." The studio's last major release was Days Gone in 2019 (with a PC port in 2021).
Sony's financial call shed light on the lessons learned from both Helldivers 2's triumph and Concord's failure. Hiroki Totoki, Sony's president, COO, and CFO, emphasized the need for earlier user testing and internal evaluations to identify and address potential issues before launch. He also cited Sony's "siloed organization" and Concord's unfortunate release window (concurrent with Black Myth: Wukong) as contributing factors to its failure. Sadahiko Hayakawa, senior vice president for finance and IR, echoed the importance of learning from both successes and failures, emphasizing the need for improved development management and post-launch support for live-service games. Sony plans to balance its portfolio with single-player titles, leveraging established IPs, alongside riskier live-service ventures.
Despite these setbacks, several PlayStation live-service games are still under development, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$. The future of Sony's live-service strategy remains to be seen, but the company's commitment to learning from past mistakes is evident.
