Another PlayStation Studio Closed Due To Sony’s Failed Live Service Push

Considering a studio’s track record of successful remasters—including the MGS HD Collection, ICO, and the God of War Collection—and culminating in what many argue is one of the best remasters to date, Demon’s Souls for PS5, one would naturally expect this trend to persist. That the studio would be driven down this road and strengthened when a publisher put in an offer to buy them. 

Bluepoint Games, however, presents a different scenario. This is THE Bluepoint Games, which is renowned for its consistent history of creating exceptional remastered titles. A genre that was filled with lackluster money grabs and had almost zero innovation in it until they leveled it up. 

While Bluepoint has yet to develop an original title, the studio has successfully carved out a niche for itself. Their output has consistently garnered positive reviews, revitalizing beloved franchises for new generations of players. Demon’s Souls, for instance, stands out as one of the few PlayStation exclusives that effectively utilizes the console’s distinct features and was praised by fans—a considerable accomplishment for the studio, especially given Sony’s limited release schedule for the platform. 

This is likely the reason behind Sony’s 2021 acquisition of the entire studio, with initial plans centered on leveraging their capabilities to develop more intellectual property. However, the process unexpectedly shifted; instead of allowing the studio to utilize its core strengths, Sony made the decision for them to work on a live-service God of War title. The idea comes really out of nowhere. The normally single player story driven experience would instead put multiple people together in 3rd person perspective to take on the gods themselves. 

Sony decided to heavily invest in a studio whose only previous experience was remasters, all in an effort to launch a live-service game that absolutely no one requested. Instead of tasking this studio with fan-favorite revivals—like Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, or Socom—or even having them lead a full remake of titles like God of War or Uncharted (Which they already remastered once before), Sony made a baffling choice of a live service game. Their grand strategy was to completely pivot the studio into a new direction, a gamble that, predictably, failed entirely.

Adding more fuel to the fire is the fact Sony announced a God of War remake that returns the franchise to the Greek roots by another studio just a few days before anouncing the closure of Bluepoint. Early leaks from the live service project already showcased Bluepoint had created assets that fit the billing, so why not transition them to doing that? Bluepoint could have also easily transitioned into working with a 3rd party to bring to life some games and create easy revenue streams for the studio and Sony. 

Or take the absolute easiest route in the history of gaming…. Fans have been begging Sony to remaster Bloodborne for PS5 for years and are disappointed at every State of Play when it isn’t anywhere to be seen. You have a studio that’s not only good at remakes/remasters, but just excelled at remaking another title in a similar franchise by the same developer…. How was this not the plan all along? 

Bluepoint hasn’t released a game in nearly six years, but the blame lies squarely with Sony’s leadership. This is the same leadership that pushed most of their studios toward live-service games—a genre they’ve had almost no success with—despite the fact that Sony’s reputation was built on unique, story-driven experiences. The decision to shift direction and turn their studios into “live service machines” is the core reason they keep closing all the studios they’ve acquired recently. The decision was simply short sighted in scope and now their smaller studios are suffering the blowback for it in hopes that one of the larger studios finally lands one. 

Sony has only released around 15 titles for PS5 from their own studios, six years into the console’s life. This includes 4 remasters, 1 delisted title, and 3 titles that Sony only had publishing rights to. This is not why we buy a PlayStation, and clearly there is directive issues internally at PlayStation that needs to be corrected soon. How could anyone with a PS5 be excited at all about rumors of PS6 if a majority of their library is on Gamepass, or PC? 

We don’t know the internal discussions that were had, so we can’t say this is the sole reason the studio was closed. We can just look on from an outside perspective where all of Sony’s studios abruptly shifted towards greenlighting live service titles on their IPs. We can look at the long history of Bluepoint making stellar remakes and it abruptly ending once Sony bought them. So from an outside perspective this is an embarrassing failure that falls on Sony. 

Their larger studios that have the revenue streams of established IP can potentially deal with the live service shift and remain healthy when it fails. These smaller studios do not have that ability. If no money is coming in for six years due to a potential executive decision, there is nothing for them to fall back on. It’s not fair that we lost a really talented studio due to such a poor decision, that clearly was not working well before the project was ever canceled. Will Sony keep chasing the money, or will they keep destroying their assets? Let’s hope they figure it out, and soon.