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 cancellation, along with another at Bluepoint Games (reportedly a live-service God of War title), follows a period of mixed success for Sony's foray into the live-service market. While Helldivers 2 achieved phenomenal success, other ventures, notably Concord, proved disastrous, leading to its swift closure and the shutdown of its development studio. This follows the earlier cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida even commented that he would have resisted Sony's aggressive push into live-service games.
Bend Studio's community manager, Kevin McAllister, reassured fans with a simple yet powerful message: "Thanks for the love and support everyone, especially to those that have reached out. P.S. We still plan on creating cool shit." Their last release was Days Gone in 2019 (PC release in 2021).
Sony's financial call shed light on the company's reflections on both successes and failures in the live-service arena. Sony president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki highlighted the need for earlier user testing and internal evaluations in the development process, citing Concord's issues as a prime example of where improvements could have been made or a cancellation decision reached sooner. He also attributed some of the issues to Sony's siloed organizational structure and an unfortunate release window for Concord, which coincided with the release of Black Myth: Wukong. Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the lessons learned from both Helldivers 2 and Concord, and the intention to share these insights across all studios to improve future development and management. Going forward, Sony plans a balanced portfolio, combining its strengths in single-player games with carefully considered live-service ventures. Several PlayStation live-service games are still under development, including Marathon (Bungie), Horizon Online (Guerrilla), and Fairgame$ (Haven Studio).
