We Were Oh So Close to Getting Soul Sacrifice 2 from Sony 1

Soul Sacrifice, and especially its expanded re-release Soul Sacrifice Delta, was superb.

Released exclusively on the PS Vita, we suspect many of you may never have played this, but it deployed when Sony was looking to fill the gaping hole left by Monster Hunter’s sudden decision to transition from PSP to Nintendo 3DS exclusivity.

The game had an iconic dark fantasy art style, and its gameplay played into the themes of “sacrifice” in the most morbid ways, so you could expend your limbs in combat at the cost of debilitating debuffs. It was brilliant.

And speaking as part of an excellent episode of Sacred Symbols (paywalled), ex-Sony first-party boss Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed that a sequel was in development, alongside a successor to the similarly interesting Monster Hunter analogue Freedom Wars.

“We were actually working on Soul Sacrifice 2 and Freedom Wars 2, but because of budget limitation we had to stop and move on to PS4,” he revealed.

Freedom Wars actually got a remastered re-release earlier this year on the PS5 and Nintendo Switch, with Sony suddenly licensing a lot of its intellectual property out to partner Bandai Namco. Patapon and Everybody’s Golf are also getting re-releases through this route.

Clearly the lacklustre sales of the PS Vita played a role in killing both these projects, but it’s a shame Soul Sacrifice 2 and Freedom Wars 2 couldn’t have continued development on the PS4, because we believe they both would have really found a home there.

[source patreon.com]