An unannounced God of War live service game has reportedly been cancelled by Sony, alongside another live service game that was in the works at Days Gone developer Bend Games.
This is according to a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who cites the God of War title as something Bluepoint Games – best know for its remasters and remakes like Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and 2020’s Demon’s Souls – “has been working on for the last couple of years”.
As well as telling Schreier that the two projects had been canned “following a recent review”, a spokesperson said that neither studio will be shut down as a result of this change in plans, and the PlayStation will keep on making both online and single-player titles.
They also added that the company will be “working closely” Bluepoint and Bend in order to determine what their next projects are, now that these live service games have bitten the dust before ever seeing the light of day.
This news is yet another body blow to the big live service plans PlayStation announced just a couple of years ago – when it said it hoped to put out 12 new live service games by 2025. Since that point, aside from the rip-roaring success that has been Helldivers 2, things have been pretty damn dire in terms of this plan.
Concord’s release and then almost immediate un-release is obviously the most high-profile example, and a situation that you really for the devs in, but it’s not the only one. For every title like Bungie’s Marathon reboot that, while it might have had a rocky path in its own way, we’re still expecting to play at some point soon, there’s a cancelled game like Bungie’s Destiny spin-off Payback.
For every Horizon Online from Guerilla, a The Last of Us Online. It’s a pretty shocking batting average, and not exactly a great use of the considerable first party studio firepower PlayStation’s amassed, even if it’s jettisoned some of that in now depressingly typical for the games industry layoff fashion recently.
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