Bend Studio may be a big casualty of Sony's era of short-lived live services

PlayStation is traditionally known for its high-quality AAA single-player games, but in recent years the company has been aggressively expanding into live services. In 2022, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki told investors that PlayStation planned to release more than 10 live-play games by March 2026. This was no doubt incredibly difficult to achieve, especially considering that there weren't really any studios. The PlayStation umbrella, which at the time had experience with live service titles. The decision to launch so many GAAS games in such a short time frame also caused some controversy, as many feared it would lead to oversaturation of the gaming market. Nevertheless, Sony continued its efforts.

The results of PlayStation's live services initiative so far haven't been great, to say the least. Even though Sony released a hugely successful multiplayer shooter Helldivers 2 at the beginning of last year, almost every other attempt in this area ended badly. A few months ago, PlayStation launched Guardians of the Galaxy-style hero shooter Concordwhich sold so badly that it was shut down just weeks after its debut. Several other GAAS titles have since been canceled entirely. Sony has dropped a handful of live-streaming games from Naughty Dog, Firesprite and Insomniac, and recently shut down projects from Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games.

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Bend Studio may have suffered the most from Sony's Live-Service Pivot

Sony has canceled two Live Service projects from Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Sony had canceled two unannounced live service games that were being developed at its first-party studios. One of them was a military shooter from Days gone creator Bend Studio and the other was GAAS God of War game from Soul of Demons (2020) developed by Bluepoint Games. According to the report, Sony told Bloomberg that the two games were dropped “after a recent review.” The company said it is working with Bend and Bluepoint to determine what their next projects will be, and noted that despite these cancellations, the studios will not be closed.

While it's great that Bend Studio and Bluepoint will still be open, the damage done to them will not be easily repaired, especially in Bend's case. At the time, Bend Studio was releasing games at a fairly consistent pace, from new Siphon filter games on Uncharted spin-off. Recently, however, the company has launched practically nothing. Bend Studio's last game released was a zombie action-adventure game Days gonewhich came out on PS4 in 2019. Yes, 2019 might not sound that far away at first, but it was almost six years ago.

Many Bend Studio projects have reportedly been shelved over the past few years

It's no secret that game development takes a lot longer than it used to these days, but Bend Studio's case is exceptionally unusual. Most game developers can normally release a big-budget AAA game in 4-5 years, but Bend Studio has not only released 0 games in 6 years, but has not announced anything. One would certainly think that if Bend Studio had been developing a live service game for half a decade, it would have shown something by now. Well, according to earlier reports, Bend Studio actually had other projects in the works, but they were scrapped as well.

In 2021, some insiders claimed that Sony canceled unannounced Uncharted game aa Days gone sequels, both of which were in development at Bend Studio. It was said that these titles were shelved in favor of creating a new IP. However, as is now known, even this new IP has been cancelled. If all of this is true, then Bend Studio is really going through a tough time lately. It must be heartbreaking for the company's employees that none of the projects they have been working on for 5+ years will see the light of day. At the rate things are going, Bend Studio might not release a single game during the entire PlayStation 5 generation.