Live service God of War games were reportedly canceled by Sony

Sony has canceled two live-service PlayStation games from in-house developers Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. The company confirmed the cancellations to Bloombergand said the two studios were safe from closure.

Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that the game in development at Bluepoint was a live-service God of War spinoff.

Sony said the cancellations were made “after a recent review” and that they were “working closely with each studio to determine what the next projects are.” The Sony spokesman did not say whether there would be job cuts at Bend and Bluepoint, but an internal email seen by Bloomberg said Sony planned “to do everything we can to ensure there is minimal business impact.”

Still, it will be a destabilizing moment for the studios, both of which seemed to operate well outside their comfort zones working on live-service games. Bluepoint is known as perhaps the game industry’s leading remaster and remake studio for its work with e.g Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s soulsand at the time of its acquisition by Sony in 2021 said it was working on an original game. Bend is best known for making action-adventure games like the Siphon Filter espionage series and 2019’s open-world zombie game Days gone by.

The cancellations come as Sony’s big push into live-service gaming continues to struggle. Sony had a big live service hit in 2024, in the form of Helldivers 2. But there was also the ignominious deletion of Concord and the closure of developer Firewalk Studios after the hero shooter saw just two weeks of operation.

Sony’s hugely ambitious live-services push was announced with fanfare in 2022, after its acquisition of Destiny studio Bungie was seen as a lynchpin of the strategy. The plan called for no less than 12 new live service launches by the end of March 2026.

As Sony’s ambition plunged straight into the volatile and high-risk world of live-service game development – where the market is dominated by perennial hits such as Fortnite that it is extremely difficult to draw players away from – those plans were drastically cut. In November 2023, the target was halved to just six games. At the time, Sony said it still had 12 games planned, but that it had delayed some and announced them.