Bend Studios may be the biggest casualty of the short-lived Sony Live Service

PlayStation It's traditionally known for high-quality AAA single-player games, but in recent years, the company has made a concerted effort to expand into live services. In 2022, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki told investors that PlayStation plans to release more than 10 live games by March 2026. PlayStation umbrella, which at that time had experience with live service titles. The decision to release so many GAAS games in such a short period of time also caused controversy, as many worried that it would lead to oversaturation of the gaming market. Nevertheless, Sony continued its efforts.

So far, the results of PlayStation's Live Services initiative haven't been great, to say the least. Although Sony released a very successful multiplayer shooter Helldivers 2 In the early part of last year, almost every other attempt at this had ended poorly. A few months ago, the PlayStation was launched guardians of the galaxyHero style shooter Concordwhich had such terrible sales that it was shut down just weeks after its release. Meanwhile, several other GAAS titles were canceled entirely. Sony dropped a handful of live-service games from Naughty Dog, Firesprite, and Insomniac, then recently shelved projects from Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games.

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Bend Studio may suffer 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 streaming games that were in development at its first-party studios. One of them was a military sniper gone days The developer was Bend Studio, and the other was a GAAS god of war Play from Satan's spirit (2020) developed by Bluepoint Games. According to the report, Sony told Bloomberg that the two games were dropped “after a recent review.” The company announced that it is working with Bend and Bluepoint to determine their next projects, noting that the studios will not be closed despite the cancellation.

While it's great that Bend Studio and Bluepoint are still open, the damage done to them isn't easy to fix, especially in Bend's case. During that time, Bend released new games at a fairly steady pace Siphon filter Games to Uncharted Spin-offs However, the company hasn't really launched anything lately. Bend Studio's newest game released was a zombie action-adventure title gone dayswhich was released in 2019 for PS4. Yes, 2019 may not seem that far away at first, but it was almost six years ago.

Many of Bend Studio's projects have been shelved over the past few years.

It's no secret that games take a lot longer to make these days, but Bend Studios' case is incredibly unusual. Most game developers can usually release a high budget AAA game in 4-5 years, but Bend Studio has not only launched 0 games in the last 6 years, they haven't announced anything. Sure, some might think, if Bend Studios had been developing a live service game for half a decade, it would have shown something by now. Well, according to previous reports, Bend Studios actually had other projects in the works, but they also fell through.

In 2021, some insiders claimed that Sony had canceled an unannounced program Uncharted Game and A gone days A sequel they were both developing at Bend Studios. These titles were said to be shelved in favor of making new IP. However, as it turns out, this new IP has also been cancelled. If all of this is true, Bend Studios has really been going through a rough patch lately. It must be heartbreaking for the company's employees that none of the projects they've been working on for more than 5 years will be greenlit. At the rate things are going, Bend Studios might not release a single game during the entire PlayStation 5 generation.

Bend Studio

Bend Studio

Date of establishment

1993-00-00

headquarters

Bend, OR 97702, United States

parent company

Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Studios

Known for

Bubsy 3D

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