Update 20:00 GMT:Jason Schreier, who originally broke the news of the live services being cancelled, has sincesaidthat this story is “not true”. He says that developers “across” the studios were informed of the cancellations before his article went live. Our original story follows.
Summary
It was revealed last week thatPlayStation has canceled two of its upcoming live service projects- aGod Of Wartitle being developed by Bluepoint, and an unannounced game helmed by Bend. More details about the projects and their cancelations continue to emerge, including the claim that those working on the projects found out their work was being scrapped at the same time as everyone else.
That’s according to Giant Bomb and Game Mess’s Jeff Grubb (thanks,VGC). Grubb revealed onGame Mess Morningsthat, after doing some digging once the news about the cancelations had broken, he discovered developers at both Bluepoint and Bend were unaware the projects were being canceled by PlayStation untilJason Schrier’s Bloomberg reportbreaking the news went live.
The two studios found out at the same time as everyone else, so people will be going into work today wondering ‘Hey, okay, what are we doing next?’ And what they’re going to have to do next, very likely, is pitch something to Sony, and the landscape of that has changed pretty drastically.
How exactly two decisions this monumental can be made and become public domain before most of those working on the projects even know about them is baffling. That, as Grubb notes, anyone who didn’t happen to check social media, or be clued in by a fellow employee, could arrive to work one morning to discover the game they’ve been working on, possibly for years, just isn’t happening anymore when the rest of the world found out the day before.
The Bloomberg Report Was How Many Working On The Games Discovered They’d Been Scrapped
As for the futures of Bend and Bluepoint and what they might be working on next, a spokesperson for Sony has claimed this doesn’t mean they will be shutting down. It has been noted that the live service games getting canceledis largely the fault of Concord’s failure, however, and Firewalk Studios, the studio behind the short-lived live service title, was shut down shortly after the game was pulled from sale and its servers shuttered.
Even thoughConcordis almost certainly the driving force behind PlayStation rethinking its live service strategy, the key difference here is these games have been canceled long before they ever had the chance to fail. A fraction of the money lost on Concord will have been spent so far on Bend and Bluepoint’s projects, and hopefully, the teams at both studios will be able to move onto new projects, whether they be ideas from PlayStation or pitches from the studios themselves.
