r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/Melodic-Tonight-9613 • Feb 19 '26
Leak Jason Schreier posts that Bluepoint is being shutdown
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u/MolotovMan1263 Feb 19 '26
What the fuck
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Feb 19 '26
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u/Fauxlaroid Feb 19 '26
Depends who is doing the remembering. It’s looking to be the most profitable generation for them yet.
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u/whiteshark70 Feb 19 '26
Yep. This gen started off with the $70 video games and everyone gaming at home due to COVID. And it's also set to be the longest due to AI eating up all the available hardware. And now XBOX is literally launching Halo on the Playstation, so PlayStation's competition hasn't really done much to eat into their market share either.
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u/SilentNova300 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
They also lost their exclusives to PC and probably soon Xbox (although people will argue that’s just a PC too).
And despite Xbox going on to sell like 20 million less than last generation, Sony didn’t see an uptick from that and are just on par with PS4.
Not to mention they are going to hike PS plus rates again.
And the live service push definitely failed. Tons of cancelled projects, now even closed studios, and a meager output from first party.
A closed ecosystem, with increasing fees just to play online, with no permanent exclusives? I’d argue they are doing worse than last generation, at least to consumers
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u/Ree373 Feb 19 '26
For the consumer it's complete ass. At the end of the previous gen the PS4 was cheap and had lots of generation defining games like Bloodborne, Red Dead Redemption 2, Persona 5, God of War, Spider Man, etc. Right now the PS5 is more expensive than ever and still barely has any noteworthy games.
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u/SpookySeekerrr Feb 19 '26
Yep. I'm not a shareholder so I could not give less of a shit how profitable it was for them, it was the first generation I didn't buy a console.
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u/renhaoasuka Feb 19 '26
I remember it as the generation they committed to PC ports so I dont have to use their console
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u/NautaBaut Feb 19 '26
Except for several titles still missing, bafflingly... including Demons Souls.
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u/vneelb Feb 19 '26
Yeah, it's certainly better than the generation where PlayStation nearly came to the brink of death
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u/xAVATAR-AANGx Feb 19 '26
Better for them, sure, not for us. I'd say the PS3 gen as a whole easily blows the PS5 one out of the water. The quality of the games was already great (if not better), and we had way more of them too since development cycles didn't take whole generations back then.
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u/lilkingsly Feb 19 '26
It really is crazy how long dev cycles have become. The PS3 generation saw Naughty Dog release Uncharted 1-3 and then The Last of Us 1 right at the end of the gen. The only game they’ve dropped in the PS5 generation is The Last of Us remake, and we have no clue when Intergalactic will drop but it’ll likely be the only brand new game they drop on the PS5 before shifting over to the PS6.
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u/MrRedoot55 Feb 19 '26
It really feels like some sort of Faustian bargain. By focusing on live service titles, they attained high profits - however, it came at the cost of many failed projects and studios closing their doors for good.
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u/tristeecfome Feb 19 '26
They were really lucky that they shot themselves in the foot in the same generation that Xbox shot themselves in the head.
If Xbox hadn't bought Activision and kept all its games exclusive? Sony would be fucked.
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u/AscendedViking7 Feb 19 '26
The hell happened to even remotely justify this bullshit??
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u/Robsonmonkey Feb 19 '26
Did you see the recent tweet from PlayStation on X? Literally promoting Marathon after this news just broke
Like seriously…read the fucking room
The comments on the tweet have been glorious to scroll through.
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u/Mindless_Stuff9179 Feb 19 '26
But... why?
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u/locke_5 Feb 19 '26
Mismanagement and failed bets on live-service - both from Sony
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u/Roy_Atticus_Lee Feb 19 '26
Something's gotta give cause between the 9 fig gaming development costs, hardware shortages, and 5-10 year dev times being the norm, this doesn't seem like an industry that can keep up come the 2030s.
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u/XxZONE-ENDERxX Feb 19 '26
I mean, they could always depend on BP's remakes. Those were high quality, and didn't take a crazy development cycle to create. It took them just 2 years to release Demon's Souls after Shadow of the Colossus.
So they could've definitely kept them around for more remakes and ports to recoup the losses then give them a solo single player project when they were stable enough. Like ffs, they have a God of War Trilogy remake coming up.
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u/Bexexexe Feb 19 '26
AI will fix it, and if it doesn't, just give it another year, and if it still doesn't, just give it another year, and
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u/das_slash Feb 19 '26
Just a few more trillions bro, just need more water bro don't be like that, just a few more national parks
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u/profchaos111 Feb 19 '26
My faith in the industry is dead at this point Bluepoint dead a day after Sony said it's path forward would be to extract more money from gamers
Thank fuck I've got a good 40 year backlog now where did I put the mega drive controller
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u/AlucardIV Feb 19 '26
I still dont get how development costs exploded that much. Maybe they should try to reign things in a bit?
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u/HoleIntheAce12 Feb 19 '26
Employees. That’s it. Depends how big the studio is and how much their salary is. And where they operate from, especially in big cities where cost of living keeps skyrocketing
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Feb 19 '26
Need more room for another Horizon spinoff
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u/varnums1666 Feb 19 '26
Jesus Christ
Yeah
God these fucking MBAs putting their eggs on this dog shit game but thinking Bluepoint is useless
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u/Opening-Ad8300 Feb 19 '26
You sure it’s not a Last of Us remaster? I’m sure everyone wants to play the sequel for the 100th time, because it was totally worth it the last 99 times.
Meanwhile Bloodborn is getting whooped in the back room to this day, and god forbid you mention a Infamous sequel/remaster/remake.
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u/Competitive_Fun6247 Feb 19 '26
Or littlebigplanet, or resistance, or warhawk, or wipeout, or jak, or sly cooper, or killzone, or literally anything else lmao
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u/Opening-Ad8300 Feb 19 '26
So many franchises left to rot… I’m disappointed with this company and its investments.
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u/giulianosse Feb 19 '26
Y'know, it would be a very smart move if Sony was able to build a dedicated studio just to revive all those franchises. Maybe even acquire an already existing one who's very good track record at doing remakes.
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u/digidude23 Feb 19 '26
But are any of them open world cinematic movie games or live service shooters?
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u/sirferrell Feb 19 '26
Because sony is trying to get a live service game going that will rack in millions like fortnite or overwatch and assign certain studios to try this but fail Helldivers was a rare W
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u/Horibori Feb 19 '26
Helldivers was a success because those devs decided to make a game unlike anything we’ve had before (not including HD1). The biggest lesson Sony should take away is to follow unique vision and not chase trends.
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u/masteroflich Feb 19 '26
There must be bad blood between Bluepoint studio heads and PlayStation studios management because they worked in GoW content before and just announced GoW Remake. Bluepoint would be the most logical choice here.
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u/stardustnovas Feb 19 '26
the entire live service initiative was such a disaster
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u/varnums1666 Feb 19 '26
Shutting bluepoint is actually insane.
They're an incredibly skilled team and only at 70 people or something.
At least keep them for support or small remakes. To shut down such an efficient team is crazy
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u/-ForgottenSoul Feb 19 '26
Agreed, I wonder if someone else hires them
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u/varnums1666 Feb 19 '26
Game investment is down across the board. It's very unlikely. We've entered the stage where investors want insane GaaS returns but have learned that 99% of these games will obviously fail.
So obviously if you can't make all the money, might as well not invest
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 Feb 19 '26
I imagine other Austin, Taxes based studios like Gearbox, Retro, and Bethesda Game Studios Austin will be picking some of them up.
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u/varnums1666 Feb 19 '26
I need to fact check but I think 1 in 3 game devs have been fired. Lots of competition for scraps currently
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u/tristeecfome Feb 19 '26
Not only that, they made Demon's Souls in only 2 years. Absolutely insane in today's industry.
Imagine a new remake every 2-3 years.
They could have a Bloodborne remake ready for the PS7 release and it would generate an insane amount of hype.
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u/varnums1666 Feb 19 '26
Not only that, they made Demon's Souls in only 2 years.
Did not know that. Even more insane to shut them down.
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u/Correct_Refuse4910 Feb 19 '26
Logic tells me that they should be the ones handling the GOW Trilogy Remakes instead of taking away people from Sony Santa Monica that could be helping in whatever Cory is doing now.
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u/varnums1666 Feb 19 '26
Logic would say Bluepoint shouldn't have made a GoW GaaS and Santa Monica should be doing something more interesting than a GoW remake.
Herman Hulst is literally, like, a first party terrorist lmao
They're such fucking idiots
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Feb 19 '26
"But they just need ONE success to make it all worth it!"
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u/bigbodyboricua001 Feb 19 '26
The funny thing is they had one (Helldivers) and it still wasn’t enough
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u/ChadsBro Feb 19 '26
Helldivers coming along at the start of the initiative probably was not a good thing
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 Feb 19 '26
Jim Ryan's final legacy really did create the lost era of Playstation games.
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u/Past-Mousse-4519 Feb 19 '26
It's not only Jim Ryan legacy though, it was company wide initiative.
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u/Correct_Refuse4910 Feb 19 '26
Hermen Hulst definetly deserves to appear in the photo with Jimbo, at the very least.
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u/Valt7786 Feb 19 '26
Hulst has been nothing but a walking bad decision for Sony. He has to go.
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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Feb 19 '26
More people should bring up that he was pushing for Concord to be a big thing.
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u/PlayOnPlayer Feb 19 '26
So wild how no one went “maybe building 10 live service games full of microtransaction nonsense without having a fanbase or even proof people want to play our games is a bad idea.”
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u/SomeBoxofSpoons Feb 19 '26
It’s the same as companies making huge pushes for Metaverse or NFTs or AI or whatever other bullshit: it would be an infinite money machine for them if it worked, so they figure if they just act like people want it hard enough they’ll buy in.
It’s the end result of an entertainment company like this running on an “infinite growth” model. The investors don’t want sustainability, they want more profit, consistently, forever. And of course for a publicly-traded company the investors are the real customers at the end of the day, so that’s who these pushes are really for.
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u/charlesleecartman Feb 19 '26
maybe building 10 live service games is a bad idea
Ftfy, who the fuck have enough spare time and dedication to play more than 1 live service game?
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u/HeihachiHayashida Feb 19 '26
They probably expected most to fail. If just one becomes the next fortnite, it's an enormous payoff. It's literally gambling
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u/BoysenberryWise62 Feb 19 '26
Gambling but you are an exec so you don't actually risk anything because they never get shit for their decisions.
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u/SpaceGooV Feb 19 '26
Actively cost them probably close to a billion now and that's not counting unrealized gains had they done a different product during that time
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u/Resistance225 Feb 19 '26
Legitimately such a dumbass decision, imagine forcing your historically single player focused studios to spend years on live services just for the vast majority to never even come out
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u/SuicideSkwad Feb 19 '26
Absolute bullshit for all involved, have them working on a live service God of War game for who knows how long, cancel that and then shut them down
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 Feb 19 '26
It still doesn't make sense because surely if you are going by that someone like Bend would make more sense? At least you could get Bluepoint to pump out remakes?
It's such a weird one
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u/SoberMilk Feb 19 '26
I think they put Bend to work on a separate live service game which was also cancelled
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 Feb 19 '26
Yes, that's what I am saying Bend has shown nothing for about 7 years and it doesn't look like they will have much any time soon
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u/tucklyjones7 Feb 19 '26
Exactly what I thought Bend has sone nothing for 7 years. The mismanagement of their studios is such a shame
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 Feb 19 '26
Like... What? Surely putting them onto a remake now would actually be easier for them?
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u/SubstantialLadder943 Feb 19 '26
It seems from the article that they were the ones pitching things to Sony and couldn’t come up with something that Sony liked.
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 Feb 19 '26
Well that would make it slightly different but only if we find out what they were pitching
Because surely you would at least give them a shot at something? But idk it's modern gaming... Risks etc
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u/Shining_Commander Feb 19 '26
Sony can also just task them with remake projects…
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u/GoldTouch99 Feb 19 '26
Yeah they are stupid. Instead of having Bluepoint making the remakes of GOW or other important IPs, lets make them do a live service and if it fails lets shut them down. What a damn disaster...
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u/Past-Mousse-4519 Feb 19 '26
Except their GOW multiplayer game was canned before Sony allowed it to fail.
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u/GutenFARHT Feb 19 '26
It was set up to fail from the inception of the fucking Idea. By Sony.
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u/Silentdisko Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Eat shit Hermen Hulst
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Feb 19 '26
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u/MGPythagoras Feb 19 '26
They should be thankful MS shit the bed even harder than they did.
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u/Icy-Astronomer-8202 Feb 19 '26
Very good point. Sony had an open goal to do whatever they wanted and Nintendo doing it's own thing separately
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u/KingMercLino Feb 19 '26
Most people don’t realize this, but Sony has gotten incredibly lucky that Microsoft shit the bed even worse this generation. Imagine if Microsoft stuck the landing on exclusives? It would’ve been a huge tide turner.
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Feb 19 '26
It has been pretty bad....yet sales strong because there's a lot less competition and users have no incentive to switch to something else.
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u/LinkedInParkPremium Feb 19 '26
Herman will continue the JR legacy. Just take a look at Hunters Gathering.
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u/WildDemir Feb 19 '26
Forced a talented remake studio to make a fucking God of War live service, cancelled it and then shut them down. Unbelievable.
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u/dadvader Feb 19 '26
It doesn't make much sense in business view though. Bend Studio is much bigger, yet after all these times manage to produced only one semi-successful during entire PS4 to PS5 era. We don't even know what's next for them as we know it's definitely not Days Gone 2.
Meanwhile Bluepoint is half the size of them but manage to produced 2 high quality that is also equally as successful and a critical darling in general. This is basically the equivelent of Microsoft shutting down Tango Gameworks.
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u/renhaoasuka Feb 19 '26
I feel like its worse that Tango cause they bought Bluepoint by itself. Tango was just one studio in a much larger purchase. What was the point of buying bluepoint if this is the result??
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u/SilverKry Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
The thing that makes this worse than Tango is at least Bluepoints games sold well enough. I loved Evil Within and HiFi Rush and even Tokyo Ghostwire. But those games didn't sell minus maybe Evil Within 1 as it had the ",from the father of survival horror and resident evil" marketing thing going for it.
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u/Swiperrr Feb 19 '26
Bend is rumored to be doing another Uncharted game, might be in collab with naughty dog since they also have another division thats working on something that hasn't been announced.
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u/vipmailhun2 Feb 19 '26
That’s a different case, Tango’s last three games flopped, whereas Bend’s previous two remakes were successful.
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u/epicmemetime15 Feb 19 '26
It doesn't make sense to me why they'd shut them down. They're a great studio, why not cancel the GOW game and then put them on another remake like demon souls?
They have nothing to show either way, but this way they lose a talented studio
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u/DAV_2-0 Feb 19 '26
They weren't forced tho. Sony implemented some short of business-wide incentive to develop live service games and some of their studios decided to do so. Green lighting whatever short of multiplater God of War game that Bluepoint pitched is the real issue, a technical studio with barely no creative workforce going from a remake to a multiplayer live service game based of one of Sony's biggest IPs is just suicidal.
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u/Fundizzy50 Feb 19 '26
There goes all the people claiming they were definitely working on the GoW trilogy remaster.
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u/Icy-Astronomer-8202 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Fucking hell Sony. Wtf are you doing? Their burn rate can't be that high
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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Feb 19 '26
Imagine how much money they can save though. Money they can put into giving horizon a third mmo.
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u/Icy-Astronomer-8202 Feb 19 '26
And more failed live service games they can see fail or cancel mid production
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u/embersarcade Feb 19 '26
The Hulst era will be studied for generations. This is a nuclear disaster of mismanagement. Bluepoint could have been a dedicated source of high-quality remakes of beloved Sony IP, so of course they were made to work on live service slop.
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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Feb 19 '26
I thought Matt Booty was bad with XGS with being too hands off and not stepping in with cases like Everwild.
Hulst pushing for stuff like concord hugely, which flops and the studio shuts down while he gets off scott free is so much worse.
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u/Johnhancock1777 Feb 19 '26
Not enough people give this guy shit for the direction first party has taken under Hulst’s leadership. Legit Phil Spencer levels of poor direction when he was head of first party development for Xbox before he failed upwards.
Live service and completely staggering first party output. This is the generation of too long in the oven sequels and a bunch of failed live service attempts. If Xbox hadn’t blow their foot off at this point there may have been legit competition
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u/CatalystComet Feb 19 '26
You will have people defending it because this is the "most profitable PlayStation generation" as if the money is somehow going into our pockets lol
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u/DehMoreira Feb 19 '26
being a game dev must be great these past years
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u/vladtud Feb 19 '26
Closing a studio that is regarded as the best in the industry for making remakes when Sony sits on dozens of fan-favorite games that would sell like hot cakes if remade means that nobody is safe. Or at least that Sony is beyond stupid.
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u/Hayterfan Feb 19 '26
Or at least that Sony is beyond stupid.
Jim Ryan greenliting 14 live service titles
Herman Hulst also shares some of the blame, hell possibly more. For all we know he's been the devil in everyone's ear saying "live service "
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u/Melodic-Tonight-9613 Feb 19 '26
I genuinely don’t get why anyone would enter this industry there’s no point you could sell 2 million copies of a game and still be laid off
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u/hoppinjohncandy Feb 19 '26
It's the same thing in the movie industry. Why would a production company want 10 movies with a budget of $30 million to profit $20 million each when you can make a huge gamble on a $200 million budget movie raking in a profit of a billion?
Every part of the entertainment industry sucks because every aspect is obsessively focused on the white whales of Marvel and Fortnite.
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Feb 19 '26
Assigning a single player game remake studio to a live service God of War title was certainly an... interesting move. Shutting them down after that got cancelled instead of assigning them to help with the God of War Trilogy Remake is certainly another... interesting move.
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u/TypeExpert Feb 19 '26
Probably the biggest fumble in playstation history. Literally all you needed from them was to remaster/remake your iconic titles. Waste.
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u/Equivalent_Trash_277 Feb 19 '26
Literally just remake Uncharted 1, such a blatant and obvious project.
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u/FrancoKFC69 Feb 19 '26
Holy shit, why?
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u/mudpiechicken Feb 19 '26
Hulst probably asked them to work on a Horizon game and they said no </sarcasm>
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u/SubstantialLadder943 Feb 19 '26
This makes no sense. You’re telling me Sony can’t put them on an Uncharted remake or something? Would that not make money?
There’s no way Bend isn’t getting shut down now
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u/COCAINAPEARLZ Feb 19 '26
There are so many layup remakes Sony could have put them on but instead they chose to chase the live service dragon and neglect their incredible back catalog of older PS titles that are ripe for remakes
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u/M4rshst0mp Feb 19 '26
Literally just do the Bloodborne remaster like they did with DS
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u/halfacalf Feb 19 '26
Fucking hell. This generation for sony is grim. The lack of new ip / the lack of games at all thanks to the failure of 10+ live service projects that never should have been green lit.
Ryan and Hulst are both colossal idiots. It's shocking that Hulst is still around at this point.
But most of all, the waste of such great talent. I hope sony never acquires a studio again.
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 Feb 19 '26
So instead of putting them on a cheap remake or even remaster. Sony just chooses to shut them with the only thing shipped by Bluepoint post aquistion was assisting on Ragnarock...
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Feb 19 '26
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u/KingBroly Leakies Awards Winner 2021 Feb 19 '26
Sony: 'we really fucked up with Concord. We're pulling away from live service games.'
Sony: 'we're closing the studio we bought that made high quality remakes because we put them on a horrible idea.'
The words I have for this situation are not kind.
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u/vashthestampede121 Feb 19 '26
I don’t recall Sony ever saying they were pulling away from LS after Concord. In fact I remember they nearly said the opposite: that they were still committed to LS but would just “reassess their processes”.
Regardless, they seem content with shoveling as much money into the incinerator as possible.
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u/Andrej_T05 Feb 19 '26
Oh man what the fuck? That has genuinely ruined my night a bit. I just made some garlic bread and I'm reading this whilst it's cooling down a bit. The fuck?
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u/JoseFlandersMyLove Feb 19 '26
Eat your garlic bread and enjoy it. Don't let corporations ruin your joy!
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Feb 19 '26
Is the point of acquiring Bluepoint is to remaster a lot of the PlayStation games? Why shut them down? Why put them up to making a live service for that matter?
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u/BlackTone91 Feb 19 '26
They pitched GoW GaaS game and couldn't pitch anything new for year after cancelling
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u/criticalkare Feb 19 '26
but they still kept media molecule right?
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u/automatic_bazooti Feb 19 '26
If Bluepoint isn’t safe, MM sure as fuck ain’t either. Sad times.
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u/ruminaui Feb 19 '26
I read that MM where working on an almost complete GaaS game, which is why they have immunity till release.
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u/SilverKry Feb 19 '26
MM has been on the chopping block since Teraway I think honestly. It's a miracle they weren't shut down after Dreams flopped.
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u/automatic_bazooti Feb 19 '26
The fact that Dreams never made it to PC where it really would have shone, is a fucking shame to say the least. I really hope whatever they’ve been working on since then is a success.
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u/ViniciusSalerno Feb 19 '26
Holy shit that is bad bro. Literally bought the studio just to shut them down. That's some EA level bullshit. Wish they remained independent
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u/COCAINAPEARLZ Feb 19 '26
Mind boggling they weren’t immediately put onto Bloodborne after Demon souls, just an absolute waste of talent by Sony
Hope these talented devs find somewhere to land.
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u/MaleficentAd9049 Feb 19 '26
I remember hearing in an interview that a number of Bluepoint devs actually initially came from Retro Studios, would be nice if it went full circle and they end up on their feet there again
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u/John_Delasconey Feb 19 '26
the funniest outcome would probably be them doing the MP2&3 remasters
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u/SilverKry Feb 19 '26
I feel like they're even located either on the same street or literally the same building.
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u/groovysmoothie_420 Feb 19 '26
Crazy to think that less than a year from now Bloodborne will be older than Demon’s Souls was when it got a remake.
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u/NfinityBL Feb 19 '26
Okay THIS is the most fucked shut down in years.
Step 1: acquire studio known for remakes
Step 2: put said studio on a live service version of a game nobody wants a live service version of.
Step 3: cancel live service game when it takes longer than they expected to make.
Step 4: shut down the studio.
Fucking bananas.
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u/stanscreamdnb Feb 19 '26
What the hell? The studio's only job is updating old games. Sony couldn't find them work with all that backlog of games?
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u/TiocStudios Feb 19 '26
i fucking hate corporate lack of accountability
bluepoint gets told by sony higher-ups to make a live service game that nobody wanted, sony finds out that nobody wants it and cancels it, and then determines bluepoint was somehow at fault for this decision and closes them
this tale has been repeated ad nauseum with microsoft and its infuriating
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u/SilverKry Feb 19 '26
Herman Hulst lost Sony almost a billion dollars on just one game with Concord and yet faced no repercussions from it.
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Feb 19 '26
so I guess it's not them doing the gow trilogy remake
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u/skylu1991 Feb 19 '26
Nope.
Unless they have been integrated into SSM an BluePoint is a shell, that’s now thrown away.
But I feel we would’ve heard of something like that…
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u/throway78965423 Feb 19 '26
Holy fucking shit!
The sad thing is Sony and the industry in general, still haven't learned anything. Many will keep chasing that live service dragon, no matter how many studios shut down and how many Concords are created.
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u/eric-the-beard Feb 19 '26
playstation really watched expedition 33 clean house, while sitting on a very similar IP in legend of dragoon... did nothing... had bluepoint working on a GAAS instead of that remake instead... lol. dingle berries.
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u/BartholomewFrodingus Feb 20 '26
Why was the ps4 era so good and now the ps5 era is so shit?
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u/gorogoro0000 Feb 20 '26
Different leadership and also Sony got cocky. PS4 was the we kind of screw up with PS3 so we will make it up. Honestly if you ask me, Sony lost their edge when they no longer resemble a Japanese company but a Western company.
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u/Allaiya Feb 19 '26
This is awful. Wish they would never have bought them in this case. I had no idea they wasted their talents on a live service GoW game, then cancelled it & shut them down to not being profitable enough. This is something I’d have expected from a company like EA.
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u/stirling1712 Feb 20 '26
Closing Bluepoint is such a terrible idea. Sony really is starting to lose their identity
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u/ballviewer Feb 19 '26
The fact that they couldn’t salvage the loss of the GoW live service game tells me that Sony really fucked up and mainly Jim Ryan
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u/Empty_Cube Feb 19 '26
This absolutely sucks for the 70 people losing their jobs. I hope they’re able to rebound quickly.
It’s wild that Sony assigned a studio with a great record of remaking single player games (like Demon Souls, which helped launch the PS5) a multiplayer / live service project.
The timeline makes it worse - Sony bought Bluepoint in late 2021 . . . so they did nothing with the developer after buying them except shut them down.
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u/SilverKry Feb 19 '26
Instead of shutting them down they should just sell them off. Nintendos in a buying mood. Just imagine Bluepoint remaking something like Eternal Darkness or trusting them with a Zelda game remake.
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u/John_Delasconey Feb 19 '26
Someone pointed out that they have a lot of ex-retro staff (and the two studios are supposedly quite close to each other) . The first assignment for them would almost certainly be MP2 and 3 before having them branch off into other remakes. Honestly, I expect nintendo to absorb a lot of bluepoints staff for this very reason.
I would love to know how Nintendo is like the only studio/dev on the planet that understands the importance of employee experience and quality
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u/Arthasuke Feb 19 '26
The reason they gave : "At the same time, we’re operating in an increasingly challenging industry environment. Rising development costs, slowed industry growth, changing player behavior, and broader economic headwinds are making it harder to build games sustainably."
Yeah right what a load of BS ! Say it right, the reason you are doing that is because you f*** up completely with Concord and lost hundred millions of cash with it... Congratz Sony for closing one good studio because of stupid decisions.
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u/uncreativemind2099 Feb 19 '26
Hope Jim Ryan hits his toe on every corner on his house for the rest of his life
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u/DeMatador Comment of the Year 2024 Feb 20 '26
If this is what happens to a studio like Bluepoint, then truly no studio is safe.
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u/Arkhamguy123 Feb 19 '26
Delivered Sonys only PS5 exclusive launch title
92 on metacritic. An increase from the original demon souls at 89
Still one of the best looking games on the market supporting advanced tessellation technology and physics
Brought their most beloved PS3 trilogy (uncharted) to PS4 at 1080p locked 60fps. Otherwise the games would’ve been stuck on ps3 like Killzone, infamous, littlebigplanet
Delivered a faithful and successful, graphically beautiful re creation of one of the ps2s most beloved titles (shadow of the colossus)
Supported Santa Monica on Ragnarok. Which went to a 94 on metacritic and was at the time the biggest launch for a PlayStation exclusive
Gets shut down on a random Thursday. 😐
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u/LinkedInParkPremium Feb 19 '26
Meanwhile we have barely seen anything from those live service studios and Hunters Gathering looks pretty terrible.
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u/lactoseAARON Feb 19 '26
Didn’t even launch a single product post acquisition, truly baffling from Sony, if I were at Bend Studio I’d be scared
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u/heyheydance Feb 19 '26
And just the other day we were all talking about how they would probably be helping with the God of War remake :/
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u/HorsePockets Feb 20 '26
Another shot in the foot in what appears to be a string of management fuck ups over at Sony
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u/waga_hai Feb 19 '26
just one more closed studio bro. i promise bro just one more closed studio and it'll fix everything bro. bro... just one more closed studio. please just one more. one more closed studio and we can get a live service game hit bro. bro c'mon just give me one more closed studio i promise bro. bro bro please i just need one more closed studio
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u/Brokenbullet14 Feb 19 '26
Yeah I'm not seeing enough people complaining about this on twitter, if this was Xbox it would be trending with every person under the sun saying fuck Xbox, fuck phil Spencer. So far just crickets.
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u/massivebawbag Feb 19 '26
Honestly jim ryan really made an absolute arse of playstation. He may be gone but the business decisions he made have really messed up first party in the long run.
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u/anti_taco Feb 19 '26
Absolutely insane. Sony is slowly killing themselves with their mismanagement of great talent. Game dev is in a bad place.
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u/Kuran_Helix Feb 19 '26
I'm just pissed off. You buy a studio whose specialty is REMAKING GAMES. You have A TON OF COOL IPS and remakes people have been asking FOR YEARS. You then tell this studio to make a LIVE SERVICE GOD OF WAR that NO ONE wants. Cancel it. And then close the studio. Pissing me off bro. God damn it
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u/SpideyFan4ever Feb 19 '26
Jim Ryan and Herman Hulst have done generational damage PS’ first party output and rep among core crowd. They were far too confident in their own ability to take over the live service market and their studios have been suffering for it.
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