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The PlayStation maker only recently shut the doors on Bluepoint, the developer behind the Demon"s Souls remake, and now, it has taken another one of its game development studios to the chopping block. This is a part of Sony"s latest cuts to gaming, with more staff being let go from its mobile wing as well.
As reported by Bloomberg"s Jason Schreier, the studio being closed down is Dark Outlaw Games. This was spun up only a year ago as a first-party studio by Sony, and it had a veteran Call of Duty developer, Jason Blundell, at its helm.
Dark Outlaw Games had been on a hiring spree as it seemingly worked on its first project since its inception, so no games had been released under it just yet. Jason Blundell"s previous work in the games industry mostly involved Call of Duty titles under Treyarch for 13 years. This included Call of Duty 3, Black Ops, Black Ops 2 zombies, and Black Ops 3 across their campaigns and zombie modes.
"Sony doesn"t set up first-party studios all the time. To have that privilege is humbling; it"s really nice. I"m really excited," Blundell had said last year when the studio was announced. It"s unclear how many staff were part of the studio when it was shut down and what sort of project it was building. Considering Blundell"s experience, it may have been a first-person shooter experience.
While Sony hasn"t made a comment on this closure, when it shuttered Bluepoint last month, CEO Hermen Hulst said that these moves were due to the current "challenging industry environment."
At the same time, Schreier added that about 50 people have also been let go from other PlayStation divisions. Some of this had included its mobile game development staff. This may mean that the company is also moving away from mobile games. As recently reported, the company is seemingly ditching PC as a platform too, as its games aren"t selling well on the platform anymore.