Kratos looking mournful in God of War, on which one of Sony's two canceled live service games was reportedly based

Sony Cancels Two Live Service Games, God of War Reportedly Among Them

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Published: January 17, 2025 9:16 AM

Sony has canceled two more live service games that were in development at two of the company's internal studios, and one of them was reportedly based on God of War.

As reported by Bloomberg, live service projects in development at Days Gone developer Bend Studio and Demon's Souls remake outfit Bluepoint have been shut down. According to a Bluesky post by Schreier, the game on which Bluepoint was working was a "live service God of War game".

Schreier then provides more context regarding what Bluepoint has apparently been up to for the last couple of years. He says the studio was providing support for God of War Ragnarok's development between 2020 and 2022 and that it then shifted to work on the aforementioned live service project.

Kratos using the Blades of Chaos to kill an icy enemy in God of War Ragnarok, on which Bluepoint was apparently working before it supposedly shifted to making its own God of War live service game
Bluepoint was apparently working on a God of War live service game, which has now been canceled.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Sony says it won't be closing down either Bend or Bluepoint, and says it's "working closely" with both studios in order to determine what their next projects will be.

According to Bloomberg's report, which cites an internal Sony memo seen by the publication, the tech giant will be doing everything it can to make sure the cancellations result in "minimal business impact". It's not clear whether the decision will result in layoffs or not.

Sony's live service strategy continues to flounder

Things aren't looking great for Sony on the live service front right now. In 2023, the company committed to releasing 12 live service games in the coming years, but that number was then halved to six by the 2025 fiscal year, with the other six under review.

Since those comments were made, Sony has released precisely one successful live service game, namely Helldivers 2. The company has also suffered one of the most high-profile live service flops in history in the form of Concord, which was taken offline just a couple of weeks after its initial launch.

Two Helldivers stalking through the jungle in Helldivers 2, Sony's sole live service success
Helldivers 2 arguably remains Sony's sole live service success.

The cancellation of these two projects leaves the future of Sony's other live service experiments in doubt.

Currently, the publisher has three other live service games in development that we know of: Haven Studios' Fairgame$, Bungie's Marathon reboot, and an online multiplayer game based on the Horizon IP.

As far as we know, these projects aren't affected by the cancellation of Bluepoint and Bend's games, but it may well be that they, along with the embarrassment surrounding Concord, cause Sony to rethink its live service strategy entirely.

We know that ex-PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida isn't a fan of the live service direction; during a recent interview, he suggested that he would have resisted Sony's live service push. It turns out he'd probably have been right to do so.

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Joe has been writing for TechRaptor for several years, and in those years has learned a lot about the gaming industry and its foibles. He’s originally an… More about Joseph