Sony has reportedly canceled two unannounced PlayStation games: one, a God of War live-service game from Demon’s Soul Remake studio Bluepoint, and the other an untitled live-service game from Day’s Gone developer Bend Studio.
This comes from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, with confirmation from a spokesperson for Sony. Despite the cancelations, neither studio is closing according to the spokesperson.
“Bend and Bluepoint are highly accomplished teams who are valued members of the PlayStation Studios family, and we are working closely with each studio to determine what are the next projects,” reads the spokesperson’s statement.
It’s unclear if the cancelations will lead to any job cuts, and Sony was non-committal in a separate statement provided to Bloomberg, saying only that it’s “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.”
PlayStation’s entry into the live-service market has been rocky at best, last year scoring a big win with Helldivers 2 while also suffering a setback with the shockingly abrupt shutdown of the online first-person shooter Concord, which resulted in the closure of developer Firewalk Studios.
The cancelations come less than a year after PlayStation laid off 900 workers across tentpole studios like Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla Games and canceled several unannounced projects.
Nothing further about the newly canceled titles has been revealed just yet, but it’s likely we’ll learn more in the coming weeks. I’ve reached out to PlayStation for comment and will update this article if I hear back.
PlayStation veteran Shuhei Yoshida says he’s surprised by Horizon Forbidden West’s success compared to Zero Dawn’s own: “I was hoping that the sequel would do even better.”
