Bend Studio, the developer behind Days Gone, remains committed to creating exciting new projects despite Sony's cancellation of its unannounced live-service game. This follows Sony's recent decision to scrap two unannounced live-service titles, one from Bend Studio and another from Bluepoint Games (reportedly a God of War live-service title). While Sony confirmed the cancellations, reassuring fans that neither studio would be closed, the move highlights the company's struggles in the live-service market.
Sony's foray into live-service gaming has yielded mixed results. While Helldivers 2, developed by Arrowhead, achieved phenomenal success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks, other ventures like Concord proved disastrous, shutting down after a brief and poorly-received launch. This failure, coupled with the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project, prompted former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida to express his reservations about Sony's aggressive live-service strategy.
Bend Studio's community manager, Kevin McAllister, offered a reassuring message to fans, 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 revealed 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 downfall to several factors, including insufficient early user testing and internal evaluation, a siloed organizational structure hindering collaboration, and an unfortunate release window that may have led to market cannibalization with Black Myth: Wukong. Sadahiko Hayakawa, Sony's senior vice president for finance and IR, emphasized the lessons learned from both projects and the company's intention to apply these learnings across its studios to improve future live-service development and management.
Despite these setbacks, Sony continues to pursue live-service games, with projects like Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$ still in development. The future of Sony's live-service ambitions remains uncertain, but the company's commitment to learning from past mistakes suggests a potential course correction.
