BREAKING: PlayStation is shutting down Bluepoint Games, the studio responsible for modern remakes of classic games such as Demon’s Souls and Shadow of the Colossus, Bloomberg News has learned.
A shocking end for a well-respected studio.
Bluepoint was working on a God of War live-service game until it was canceled early last year. The studio then spent the last year pitching and trying to determine what it would do next.
This is even more stupid than Microsoft shutting down studios. It makes literally no sense.
What a needlessly stupid thing it was to put them on a live service project, and what a waste to close it down.
This is such a horrific mismanagement of a studio it makes me question if the studio itself wanted to make a live service game and bit off more than they could chew. Because if this is on Sony, and it does have Sony written all over it, then they’re legitimately worse than EA. It’s like a low I didn’t even know existed because it would be an astonishing level of incompetence.
A few years back when Sony purchased Bungie, they stated they wanted to focus more on live service games. I think they wanted to release 10 live service games over 10 years. That means they need a variety of their studios working on them, even if it isn’t their specialization. This is definitely a Sony decision and a stupid one at that.
Let’s assume it was the studio’s idea. They wanted to make a game that wasn’t their specialty and Sony let them do it because they didn’t want to stifle creativity. Now it failed miserably.
Sony isn’t going to get the money they lost, so why not course correct and put the studio on what they specialise in?
That’s what is puzzling me. How was it so impossible to course correct the studio when it’s absolutely obvious how to put two and two together?
Word is this live service push was Jim Ryan’s initiative, and he left the company right before it all fell apart.
But that happened in 2024, Sony had the whole of 2025 to figure out what to do with the studio and it’s not like they don’t have highly desirable games to remake cough Bloodborne cough for a studio known for excellent remakes. I just want to know what the hell happened in 2025 for the studio to get literally no projects greenlit by Sony? Is Sony still continuing its stupid live service push or did the studio no longer want to make remakes or what the problem was? The path forward is so clear you don’t even need a business degree to make the decision that could’ve kept this studio alive so what the hell happened?
What happened is that pivoting from a bad idea like this takes a long time and a lot of money for a company this large, and they had no plan B, which is stupid, so they’d rather just reduce their operating expenses.
It doesn’t take a whole year to pivot, unless they sit on their ass for that whole year. I’m not saying it’s not possible they did that but it would be an insane level of incompetence.
I think it has to be insane levels of incompetence. They’re not patient enough to wait around for 3 years for Bluepoint to put out something that makes money, so they probably gave them some busy work, like support work for other studios, until they could go through the bureaucracy of closing the studio.
Is it viable for a studio like this to just reform under a new name and continue doing what they love?
A studio is only ever as good as its people. Those people will move to other things, sometimes they will group together under a new name. So yes, totally possible, you just might not recognize them if it happens.
It happens all the time, but you need startup capital. And a lot of what they did is remaking games (at high quality) that they don’t own the rights to.
I guess the problem is that it would cost a lot to keep paying everyone for however many years it takes until they have a product.
Man, I really loved the Demon Souls Remaster. It was absolutely gorgeous.
It was kind of weird to me how a lot of folks didn’t seem happy with that one. I played the hell out of the original and the remake was almost 1:1 aside from the graphical updates and a small handful of QoL. They did a phenomenal job with it and really nailed the combat and vibes of the original in the best ways.
Dropping the entire studio like this is so fucked.
NO…
I was hoping for the Demon’s Souls remake to get ported to PC as I would love to play the game again. A PC version of the game was included in the same Nvidia leak that showed Helldivers 2 before it was announced. Every showcase, I was wondering where Bluepoint were… And now they went under.
Complete insanity that Sony forced them to do a live service game for the past few years. Bluepoint was practically an art studio, they could’ve spent the next 20 years just remaking old games and make bank. What were they thinking?
Their service game strategy has been a total disaster from start to finish. Good thing the ps6 is delayed so that playstation gamers can hopefully see some exclusivities before the next gen.
I’d forgotten that was on the Nvidia list. Wasn’t many misses on there. Final Fantasy IX remake was another big one that never surfaced.
Sony was thinking “money me, money now, money money money, big money, money now”
Charlie was quite the writer
Which apparently backfired spectacularly.
Yeah well if Sony would have just let em cook and provided me with PC ports of Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls then they would have happily received my money. Instead they get to recieve an extended middle finger.
They’re too busy making more money-sink Spider-man movies without Spider-man.
It’s Morbin’ Time!
Meanwhile, Naughty Dog keeps milking the last great game they produced in 2013.
Why is there a picture of some bald ugly dude instead of something like a bluepoint logo or a Sony one?
Ridiculous
it’s a bluesky tweet
For AI use ofcourse.
Probably because not enough people are buying PS5s. You all didn’t rent a PS5, so now small indie company Sony has to dissolve a studio. It’s not the executive’s fault, it’s the consumer’s fault, obviously.
this is so insane on its face that the first place my mind goes is, were they about to unionize?
Ha… I bought a PS5 just to finally play the Deamons Souls remake.
If it’s any consolation, it has a pretty excellent catalog and has been my favorite PS since 2. I’m just a sucker for immersion, though, and the controller has that in spades.
Well, this seems to be the first console generation that is going up in price over time.
That and Bloodborne for me. But Returnal had just come out at the time, and that is also good (tho no longer exclusive). I also keep forgrtting the system I got was bundled with God of War: Ragnarok and I have never even installed it… 🤔
It took me a couple years to install GoW Ragnarok, was also included with my purchase. I really preferred the first one over it tbh. I only got like halfway through because Atreus got to be insufferable with the marvel-esque “I fight for my friends” type dialogue. Like the first one feels raw, and the story is tight, combat and gameplay is basically the same. But Ragnarok tries to do too much in its story at once it feels like and just has this cringe-y air to it, idk.
That makes no sense
No Games Station becomes more and more true over time. Trend chasing failures is the new Sony trend.
PS4 was so disappointing to me after 1/2/3 and it’s sad to see continued decline.
The only actually worthwhile studio they owned…
Bluepoint was working on a God of War live-service game until it was canceled early last year.
Maybe this was for the best, if that was their best idea to move forward with. I feel like people are getting tired of cookie-cutter live service games coming out every year.
I don’t even know how you’d do that with God of war.
You can just smell the shitty decision making that some executive went thru. Prolly the same exec that pulled the trigger on the layoffs.
My main issue with live service games is that I just don’t have the fucking time to invest in them.
I’ve yet to see a game move to live service that didn’t just pad out all the busy work and fuck with the pacing of any story element.
Give me a single player experience that I can push up 6 months later and not have to grind to get back to where ever I was.
I’ve been tired of live service games since before fortnite had battle royale.
