As part of the sweeping layoffs of 900 Sony Interactive Entertainment employees, Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, has confirmed that there have been some game cancellations.
With Hulst stating that they were “at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs,” that led to them reevaluating all of the teams and projects in production.
“We looked at our studios and our portfolio,” he said, “evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward.
“I want to be clear that the decision to stop work on these projects is not a reflection on the talent or passion of team members.
“Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan.”
So, what has been canned by Sony? London Studio, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Firesprite and Guerrilla Games were all named studios, though layoffs could impact any studio.
- With the closure of London Studio in its entirety, the as yet unnamed fantasy online co-op game teased in 2022 has absolutely been cancelled.
- Naughty Dog, of course, cancelled their The Last of Us multiplayer game at the end of last year, and any layoffs at that studio could still be related to this.
- Firesprite had multiple projects on the go, with Project Heartbreak the most recently rumoured, but their reported Twisted Metal live service game (intended to tie in with the Paramount TV show) has been cancelled. Per Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, this game was still in pre-production and had not been fully greenlit.
- Guerrilla Games had a reported Horizon live service game in the works, but this is safe, per Schreier.
- Insomniac is a real surprise. Per ransomware leaks late last year, they had a pretty solid development schedule and healthy team overlap, so even if Spider-Man 2 completed last year, there’s no drop off or idle hands while spinning up a new project, as Wolverine is in development and a Spider-Man 2 spin-off sequel. This could be a more general scaling back of scope and resources
It’s not clear how badly this will affect Sony’s planned lineup, but this generation has seen them stretching out development time further than ever before. Alongside that, their major acquisitions were intended to drive an expansion into delivering a quickfire string of live service games… but they’ve delayed half of these games, and some have already been cancelled.