Sony first-party developer Bend Studios is staffing up for another «AAA live service» game, and it seems that PlayStation will continue to chase the live service dragon. When we last heard from the Oregan-based developer of Days Gone, Bend said it was still «cooking» and, if nothing else, seemed confident whatever they were working on would take the studio to the next level.
Rumor: Deviation Games Closing After Sony Live Service Title Cancelled
11.03.2024 - 13:25 / gameranx.com / Sony
Deviation Games has reportedly shut their doors down.
As reported by GamesRadar, chief human resources and operations officer Kirste Stull shared this message to former coworkers over at their LinkedIn page:
“I want to express my deepest gratitude to our entire team. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and contributions to Deviation; I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with each and every one of you.”
Deviation Games was founded by Jason Blundell and Dave Anthony, who previously worked on the Call of Duty series. In 2021, they signed a deal with Sony to make a live service title for the company. Based on the timing of the agreement, this was likely planned to release on PC and PlayStation 5 from the onset. It may even have had a simultaneous launch planned, like the recent hit Helldivers 2.
Now, Sony and Deviation Games did not identify the title as a live service game, but a rumor we reported on from 2022 hinted heavily that it would be such a game. They had provided the description that the game would be:
“…a world-class FPS that is planned to be supported for years, if not generations. The project will receive many game modes, including heavily story-driven single-player campaigns and multiplayer aimed both for arcade modes and competitive ones.”
We reported that Deviation Games’ title was one of several projects that Sony had decided to cancel, alongside The Last Of Us Online. What’s especially sad for the developers who made up this team is that this project got cancelled, not only before it got released, but even before Deviation Games was even able to reveal it to the world.
We do have to regard this project with some discriminating eyes. Sony did decide to cancel a lot of their recent projects, but they are going forward with others. It’s possible that Deviation Games was not able to build their project up to a state that it was worth showing, or that development was going poorly.
Of course, this speculation is revolving around a title that we know next to nothing about, so there’s no way we can confirm any of these short of if any former employee is willing to spill the beans.
Those gamers who didn’t want live service games, and perhaps may be happy with this news, should still consider how this reflects poorly on Sony. If they didn’t tie the studio up to a project that they were just going to cancel, perhaps Deviation Games could still be around. Deviation could have been a smaller studio, making a smaller FPS that fans could enjoy.
While we can’t confirm the news outright, we wish the former or current employees at Deviation the best.
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
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