The developer behind the popular game *Days Gone*, Bend Studio, remains optimistic about its future projects despite the recent cancellation of its unannounced live-service game by parent company Sony. Last week, Sony made the decision to cancel two unannounced live-service titles in development at Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. While Bluepoint was reportedly working on a live-service game inspired by the *God of War* franchise, as noted by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the specifics of Bend Studio's project remain under wraps. A spokesperson from Sony confirmed these cancellations to Bloomberg, reassuring fans that neither studio would be closed and that Sony would collaborate with them to plan their next steps.
Sony's push into the live-service gaming sector has faced significant challenges. Despite the success of Arrowhead's *Helldivers 2*, which became the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, other live-service ventures have either been canceled or met with disastrous launches. A prime example is *Concord*, which Sony had to pull offline after just a few weeks due to extremely low player engagement. The failure of *Concord* led Sony to completely shut down its developer. This followed the cancellation of Naughty Dog's ambitious *The Last of Us* multiplayer project. In light of these events, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida expressed that he would have tried to steer Sony away from this live-service strategy if he were in the position of current Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst.
In a reassuring message to fans via a tweet, Bend Studio's community manager Kevin McAllister stated, “Thanks for the love and support everyone, especially to those that have reached out. P.S. We still plan on creating cool shit.” This message underscores the studio's commitment to continue developing exciting new content, despite the setbacks. Bend Studio's most recent release was *Days Gone* in 2019 for the PlayStation 4, which also made its way to PC in 2021.
During a recent financial call, Sony's president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki reflected on the contrasting fortunes of *Helldivers 2* and *Concord*. He acknowledged that Sony should have implemented development checkpoints, such as user testing and internal evaluations, much earlier in *Concord*'s development cycle. Totoki admitted that Sony is still in the learning phase, emphasizing the importance of early and thorough evaluation for new IPs. He suggested that had these measures been in place earlier, Sony might have been able to improve *Concord* before its launch or decide to cancel it altogether.
Totoki also pointed to Sony's "siloed organization" and the unfortunate timing of *Concord*'s release, which coincided with the launch of the successful *Black Myth: Wukong* on PS5 and PC, leading to potential market cannibalization. He stressed the need for better coordination across Sony's organizational boundaries and more strategic timing for game releases to avoid such conflicts.
In the same financial call, Sony's senior vice president for finance and IR, Sadahiko Hayakawa, compared the launches of *Helldivers 2* and *Concord*, noting that the lessons learned from these contrasting outcomes would be shared across Sony's studios. Hayakawa outlined plans to enhance Sony's development management system by integrating insights from both successful and failed projects. This includes better management of title development, continuous content expansion, and service scaling post-launch. Sony aims to build an optimal portfolio that balances its strengths in single-player games, which have a higher predictability of success due to established IPs, with the potential upside of live-service games, albeit with the inherent risks at launch.
Looking ahead, Sony has several live-service games in development, including *Marathon* by Bungie, *Horizon Online* by Guerrilla, and *Fairgame$* by Haven Studio. These projects represent Sony's ongoing commitment to the live-service model, albeit with a more cautious and informed approach following recent experiences.
