Jason Schreier is reporting that PlayStation has canceled two more live service games. These were both unannounced titles that were in the works from Bend Studio, developers of Days Gone, and Bluepoint Games, who did the remake for Demon’s Souls. Both teams are not in danger of closing down, but there is a chance that the shift to new projects could result in layoffs, though they told Bloomberg they were doing “everything we can to ensure there is minimal business impact.”
These two cancellations come at a time where the focus on live service games has been tough sailing for PlayStation to say the least. While Helldivers 2 released last year and has been seen as a bonafide success, the quick failure of Concord and axing of multiplayer Last of Us and Spider-Man games have shown this has been a rough transition. Currently, the only live service games that PlayStation hasn’t canceled that we know of are Fairgame$, which hasn’t been discussed since 2023, and Bungie’s Marathon.
In regards to the studios affected today, this is very disappointing news. For Bluepoint, what they have been working on has been a complete secret since Demon’s Souls. Schreier posted on Bluesky that they helped work on God of War: Ragnarok until 2022, and that this canceled game was a live service God of War game. There is no saying what Bend was working on, there is reporting that they were helping with the canceled Last of Us Factions game previously, so maybe this recent project was something not that far along.
So what’s next? We wouldn’t be surprised to hear of some more layoffs affecting these teams at some point in the future. The thing with AAA development these days is it is extremely expensive, and very slow. Unless these teams get moved to games already in development, don’t expect to see anything from either of them for a long time.
