Jason Blundell, a veteran game developer best known for his work on Call of Duty franchise, announced that he was starting a new studio. The announcement comes after Sony abruptly shut down Dark Outlaw Games, which Blundell was previously in charge of. The move was another example in a series of first-party PlayStation studios closing their doors.
Blundell's most notable contributions to the industry come from Call of Duty's Zombies mode, creating a Chaos story set in Black Ops games. He made headlines when he left Activision-Blizzard in 2021 to work for the ill-fated Deviation Games for just over a year. In March 2025, PlayStation announced that it had brought Blundell to lead Dark Outlaw Games, which ended in March 2026.
Concept art of canceled PlayStation Live-Service title appears online
A newly discovered batch of concept art offers the first look at one of the many canceled PlayStation Live projects.
Introducing Magic Fractal
During a live stream with former Dark Outlaw Games JC Farmer, Blundell revealed that he is starting a new studio, MagicFractal. However, little is known about the studio and what he is working on. The company's website is basically a placeholder with a contact form, and Blundell didn't say what was being worked on during the live stream. Farmer and Blundell asked fans to follow the Magic Fractal Twitter account, which has around 9,300 followers at the time of writing, as a show of support for the studio.
The Dark Outlaw Studios project was unannounced, but Blundell confirmed that he wasn't working on anything related to the live service. Since the project never saw the light of day, it's possible that MagicFractal has a solid conceptual foundation to work from if Blundell can use some of Dark Outlaw's dropped ideas. Of course, it's equally possible that the team is starting something entirely new, given how contentious the gaming industry can be.
While it's a shame that Dark Outlaw Studios closed in the first place, it's at least good to see Blundell staying on top of things with a new studio. With the gaming industry in such a rough state, it helps to have promising newcomers to root for, and given the speed with which Magic Fractal's social media account has gained a following, it seems that gamers are largely on the side of Blundell and co. With any luck, they'll be able to maintain the goodwill long enough to see their game released.
GameRant Quiz
Start
Easy (15s) Medium (10s) Hard (5s)
On the other hand, game shutdowns happen all too often, and recently Xbox and PlayStation have been hit hard. As for Sony, if there's a pattern in the tea leaves of its recent shutdown, it's too abstract to say anything definitive about its strategy. Firewalk Studios subsequently shut down Concord's failure, while beloved studio Bluepoint Games closed despite a lauded launch Soul of Demons remade alongside the release of the PS5. With both the live service and single-player games getting the ax, Sony seems to be mostly focused on cutting costs.
Hopefully, better days are ahead for the fighting game industry, but in the meantime, players will just have to hope that new studios will fill the gaps of those left behind. To that end, we hope Magic Fractal falls to the ground.
