Bend Studio Vows to Create Awesome Content Post Sony Live Service Cancellation

The developer of Days Gone, Bend Studio, remains committed to creating innovative projects despite Sony's recent cancellation of its unannounced live-service game. Last week, Sony announced the cancellation of two unannounced live-service titles, one from Bend Studio and another from Bluepoint Games. While Bluepoint was working on a live-service version of God of War, as reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the nature of Bend Studio's project remains undisclosed. A Sony spokesperson confirmed the cancellations but reassured that neither studio would be closed, and they would collaborate to determine future projects.

Sony's venture into live-service games has faced significant challenges. While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks and becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever, other attempts have faltered. Sony's Concord, for instance, turned into one of the biggest flops in PlayStation history, shutting down shortly after launch due to extremely low player engagement. This failure followed the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer game. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida expressed that he would have opposed Sony's live-service push if he were in the current leadership position.

In response to the cancellations, Bend Studio's community manager Kevin McAllister tweeted, "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 Bend Studio's determination to continue developing exciting content, despite the setback. Their most recent release was Days Gone, which launched on PlayStation 4 in 2019 and on PC in 2021.

During a recent financial call, Sony's president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki reflected on the lessons learned from both Helldivers 2's success and Concord's failure. He emphasized the need for earlier implementation of development gates, such as user testing and internal evaluations, to identify and address issues before a game's launch. Totoki also criticized Sony's "siloed organization" and the timing of Concord's release, which coincided with the launch of Black Myth: Wukong, potentially leading to market cannibalization.

Totoki stressed the importance of improving cross-organizational collaboration and selecting optimal release windows to avoid cannibalization and maximize performance. Sony's senior vice president for finance and IR, Sadahiko Hayakawa, compared the launches of Helldivers 2 and Concord, highlighting the valuable lessons learned from both experiences. He noted that these insights would be shared across Sony's studios to enhance development management and post-launch content strategies.

Looking ahead, Sony continues to develop several live-service games, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$. These projects reflect Sony's ongoing commitment to balancing its portfolio between single-player games, which have a higher predictability of success due to established IPs, and live-service games that offer potential growth despite inherent risks.