The team behind Days Gone, Bend Studio, has laid off a significant amount of staff following the cancellation of a live-service game. PlayStation had one of the best generations in the history of gaming with the PS4. The hardware was great, it was affordable, and the games were non-stop. It created a lot of momentum going into the PS5 generation, something that really helped the console in its early days. However, there has been a severe lack of big first party releases from PlayStation this generation. Third-party exclusives like Final Fantasy have done a lot of heavy lifting, but fans long for new games from Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and more.
Unfortunately, a lot of big games have been cancelled this year. A new online-based God of War game was scrapped sometime last year, Concord was released but killed off in a matter of days, and that has prompted a larger feeling of dissatisfaction with PlayStation among fans. Games are being killed left and right, therefore hurting the overall output. Even Death Stranding 2 isn’t really a first-party game since Kojima Productions is independent and the first game made its way to Xbox five years later, so it stands to reason that the second one might as well in the future.
With that said, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has reported that Bend Studio is laying off 30% of its staff which amounts to around 40 people. This comes following the cancellation of a live service game from the studio earlier this year. The studio is spinning up production on a brand new game, though there are no details on what that might be. Bend has been in a perilous situation for a while now as it released Days Gone back in 2019 after a lengthy development cycle and it failed to meet expectations. While it has grown in popularity since its release, PlayStation seemingly has no interest in continuing that franchise with new games.
Bend was reportedly working on a new Uncharted after Days Gone, but that project also got canned. Perhaps enough time has passed that Days Gone 2 could finally materialize, but it seems unlikely. Key members of that game’s team are now gone and it may just not be in the cards, despite hopes for fans. Whether or not Bend goes on to make another new IP or takes the reigns on another PlayStation franchise, as it has done before, remains to be seen.
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