Bend Studio, the developer behind Days Gone, remains committed to creating exciting new games, despite Sony's cancellation of their unannounced live-service title. This follows Sony's recent decision to scrap two unannounced live-service projects, one from Bend Studio and another from Bluepoint Games (reportedly a God of War live-service game). While Sony confirmed the cancellations, assuring that neither studio would be closed and future projects would be explored, the move highlights the challenges Sony has faced in the live-service market.
Sony's foray into live-service gaming has yielded mixed results. While Helldivers 2 achieved phenomenal success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever, other ventures, such as Concord, ended disastrously, resulting in closure after a short lifespan due to low player numbers. This follows the earlier cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida even commented that he would have resisted Sony's aggressive push into live-service games.
Bend Studio's community manager, Kevin McAllister, reassured fans via Twitter, stating their continued commitment to developing "cool stuff." Their last release was Days Gone in 2019 (with a PC port in 2021).
Sony's financial call offered insights into the company's learnings from both the success of Helldivers 2 and the failure of Concord. Hiroki Totoki, Sony's president, COO, and CFO, attributed Concord's failure to insufficient early user testing and internal evaluations, as well as a siloed organizational structure and an unfortunate release window that clashed with Black Myth: Wukong. Sadahiko Hayakawa, Sony's senior vice president for finance and IR, emphasized the lessons learned from both games, highlighting the importance of improved development management and post-launch content scaling. Sony plans to balance its portfolio with established single-player titles 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$.
