Sony has cancelled two live-service titles that were being developed by Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games.
The new was broken by gaming pundit Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg, and then apparently confirmed by Sony themselves who confirmed that two “live-service” projects had been cancelled “following a recent review”.
“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,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg.
On Bluesky, Schreier offered further details, stating that the cancelled live-service game at Bluepoint was actually a God of War game.
“Fans have long wondered what Bluepoint has been working on for the last couple of years. I can report it was a live-service God of War game.” said Jason.
Sony announced plans in 2022 to have 12 live-service games running by 2025, but would later bring that number down to 6. Helldivers 2 launched in 2024 and was a massive success, and still draws great numbers. Of course, Concord also launched last year and was an unmitigated disaster that lost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars. If we count those two and now the cancelled projects, that would mean Sony is down to two live-service projects left. Presumably, those are Bungie’s upcoming Marathon and Haven Studios’ PvP game.
As for previous live-service projects, there was a rumoured Spider-Man title based around the multi-verse which was apparently canned, along with Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer title. That one was supposed to have been axed when Bungie provided feedback suggesting it wasn’t up to snuff. A live-service Twisted Metal game was also cancelled back in 2023 when Firesprite faced layoffs.
Out of all this, it’s Bend Studio I feel the most sorry for. Their pitch for a Days Gone sequel was denied by Sony. They revealed in 2021 that they were working on a new IP. If that was the same game that was cancelled then that’s four years of work down the drain. If that’s the case and if it’s the only project they’ve been working on, the lengthy triple-A development times mean it will likely be 3-6 years until they get a chance to release something else. Their last game was the underrated Days Gone in 2019, meaning Bend Studio might end up going an entire console generation without releasing a single project.
The success of games like Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals shows that companies absolutely should at least experiment and explore the live-service space, but it’s pretty clear that it isn’t an area where we