Funny thing about PS1 and PS2 generations, Sony barely had any major first party presence when it come to exclusive content. Most of the exclusives they had were from third party studios.
The generation that changed this was the PS3 where it was so bad/difficult to develop content for the hardware, that Sony had to invest in its own studios to have something stand out.
Coming up next: Housemarque live service game, since people don't buy their traditional single-player games.
Anyway, I guess we really won't be seeing many new IPs coming in the near future. If these studios remain open, they will probably work on franchise games like God Of War, The Last Of Us, etc., since that's what the PlayStation public clearly wants.
Schreier talks a little about Amy Hennig's version in his book.
It was supposed to be a game more focused on puzzles and character relationships (with some saying that Telltale games were an inspiration). Drake would not pick up a firearm until the second half of the game due to the "criticism" that many people had saying that the character was a serial killer.
@AdamNovice - McDonald has a huge beef with Sony since SIE sent a cease & desist on one of his Bloodborne mods (I don't remember correctly, but I think he was distributing modified versions of the game to be played on unlocked PS4s or something like that)
What impressed me the most was seeing so many people truly believing that they would have their paid games literally removed from their accounts if they didn't appear online for more than 30 days.
Of course, if there really is any new DRM practice, it's going to be horrible and everyone has to go down on Sony for it. But it's much more likely that the system will require users to go online at least once every 30 days to renew licenses, not that the game will be removed from accounts or anything like that. One user said his licenses were renewed automatically every time he went online on PSN.
Modded Warfare (of the biggest YT channels when it comes to PlayStation exploits, hacking and piracy) claims this is a way for Sony to prevent new exploits.
@HerlockSholmes - They still have Spider-Man 3 and the rumored X-Men games to produce. But a new Ratchet and a new IP were in their pipeline. Just don't hold your breath to see those in the next 5 years.
It's cool to have Xbox games on PlayStation but it would be curious to see them going back to exclusives (would even include Activision and Bethesda games this time) just to see how Sony would react.
I don't know for sure if it would be a good or bad thing to see Sony becoming more aggressive when it comes to the gaming market.
Anyway, at least their new CEO is already beating both Nintendo and Sony when it comes to the number of PR statements.
Well, Bungie has over 800 people (with over 300 of those having worked on Marathon), in one of the most expensive cities in the world today (where game developer salaries can easily exceed $250,000 annually). Yeah, it makes sense.
And I really can't see any alternative other than big publishers stopping to invest in studios in places like California, Washington and Canada.
Marathon wouldn't have cost less if it "were smaller", as the game was known for having little content at launch. Bungie going back to making single-player games also won't make the games cheaper to make (and it would be a failure for Sony since Bungie was specifically bought for its multiplayer games)
And please, it's time to stop regretting the cancellation of TLOU Online. Folks need to understand that if that game had gone ahead, we would hardly see a new single-player game from Naughty Dog anytime soon.
@Bamila - Things will still have names, but I guess Sony wants to put more emphasis on the name PlayStation itself.
A PlayStation account is required, the PlayStation services are offline, the PlayStation Store received new deals, change your PlayStation ID and so on.
Sony also removed the "Signed to PSN" row on the network test on the PS5 OS. Is just "Signed to PlayStation" now.
Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, Epic and Microsoft failed to pull people from Steam but somehow Sony would be able to do that. Yeah, right.
Funny that the rumor about Sony leaving the PC "market" to focus on Apple devices said (and already debunked) by Jeff Gerstmann didn't take any traction.
It makes sense considering that Sony hires a studio that probably has less than 10 people to make these versions. As long as there isn't more people to work on this, it will continue like this (or get worse)
And it probably stopped being the selling point of the tier when they added cloud streaming (which works well on Portal).
@jFug - Well, they'll probably refocus on that again (there are already some rumors about that), but it's not like they'll give up on having their own Fortnite anytime in the near future.
If they give up completely, I think people should prepare for a new price increase on games in the next generation, because they will try to find the money somewhere.
I don't get why people are so pissed about Marathon, to be very honest. Last single-player focused game Bungie released was 17 years ago.
@CielloArc - Marathon will do fine, I guess at least it will last some months. Game is among the top sellers on Steam, people will play it for some time. But on the long run? Who knows.
(I really don't know how my Tekken 3 disc didn't exploded with how much I played that thing when I was a kid)
Anyway, sure, these games had new versions with more characters, but no one knew that when they were released. Today, for those who want to have the complete game, need to buy the more expensive editions that come with a season/character pass from the getgo or they need to wait for a complete version years later.
Still a little hesitant to buy the game right at launch. Not because of the quality of the product, but because of the simple fact that all fighting games nowadays release new paid characters every year.
I grew up playing fighting games that were complete at launch, with you having to progress to unlock new characters. Now you buy the base game and you will still need to spend money on a recurring basis if you want to have all the characters.
Shinobi602 already "confirmed" that Atreus won't be the main character. Schreier saying it will "feel" like a new IP makes me think it will be a new set of characters.
It's kind of funny that pretty much every negative news that Sony had in this generation was quickly forgotten because somehow Microsoft released even worse ones right after.
@Cjam36 - Yeah, it seems pretty clear that Sony was giving priority to those who were giving pitches for live service games.
If it were something mandatory as many people say, Housemarque, Santa Monica, etc. would already be presenting theirs by now. Bluepoint for some reason thought it was a good idea.
The biggest problem is that no one at Sony stopped to say: Hey, you guys never did this, keep doing what you know and we will look for another studio to do live services. In fact, the same goes for the idea of ​​releasing 12 ***** live service games by March 2026. It's hilarious that there wasn't A SINGLE SOUL in there saying that this would never work.
@Hi569 - There's a reason. Studio hasn't released anything since 2020 and was still years away from releasing anything.
But Sony's obsession with live service games was one of the reasons the studio was unable to release anything in these six years as it pivoted to that and their project got cancelled last year. In addition, they also worked as a support studio on God Of War Ragnarok.
I guess that under Totoki's command, literally no studio will be safe (Naughty Dog, Santa Monica included). If a studio simply doesn't generate more money than it spends to stay open, it will be closed. "Simply" as that.
We'll probably see way more remasters, remakes and so on as these studios will be desperate to generate more money while their 5~7 year projects aren't done. And say goodbye to exciting new IPs. We'll get the same old IPs for the next 10~15 years.
It's ridiculous in a reality where big studios are struggling to deliver two games per generation seeing Sony thinking it's OK to close so many studios. They need more, not less. It won't be long before they're shipping one game a year and they will think it is completely normal.
Won't be long before PlayStation Studios is able to deliver a mere single game per year. Games are taking longer to make and Sony thinks it's a good studio to close studios left and right.
Buy a renowned studio that makes great remakes > encourage the studio to make a live service game > cancel the game > don't know what to do with the studio > close the studio
Hulst, Hermen.
Dude probably has more studios closed than games released under his tenure. PlayStation will end the generation with less studios than it had on the generation before.
I don't know if exactly this will change anything at Sony or not, since looking at the game's production videos, it's very clear that it was the studio (Mega Cat) that had the initiative to start the project, and not Sony that went after several studios to see who would do it.
If there was any "initiative" within PlayStation to have more games like this, I think we would have heard about it by now.
Amazing that nothing can be accepted for what it is anymore. Everything needs to be the biggest/best that has ever been made.
It's clearly not the best game in the world and I don't think it needs to be. I would even say that it is the right way that Sony has to fill the gaps of releases they have had. I hope they finance another 10, 20 of these.
And Jaffe getting mad because characters TALK in a game already gives me relief that he left the franchise, because if he was still in charge, we'd still be hearing Kratos screaming because he's still mad at Zeus, 20 years later.
@get2sammyb - And we haven't had any confirmation if Santa Monica is the one doing most of the work on the remakes (a lot of people think that Bluepoint might be working on those as well).
It's quite possible that after God Of War 2018, most of the studio went straight to Ragnarok while smaller groups of 5~10 people started pre-producing other games. Barlog's project might have entered full production in late 2022 or early 2023.
@Zeroo - Yeah, Shinobi602 just confirmed that Cory Barlog has been working on another game that it's not related to the remakes. It probably entered full production after Ragnarok released in 2022.
And he said earlier in the week that going by the release window they're aiming (2027?), it should be revealed this year.
@IOI - As I said, studios were probably encouraged to make live service games. Bigger budgets, easier to get a green light and so on.
If it were mandatory, even Santa Monica would have come up with one. Ghost Of Yotei would have been a multiplayer/coop game, Nauthty Dog and Insomniac would have been forced to release their (now cancelled) games and etc.
I guess Sony has wanted to have a big hit in the vein of Fortnite and Call Of Duty for a while. Microsoft buying half of the industry must have accelerated that by about 150%. And with more than half of the money they make coming from microtransactions that they still don't get 100% from the sale, I doubt they'll stop trying.
@get2sammyb - I was thinking that they definitely need more studios, especially in an era where most studios will be able to deliver one or two games per generation. But I think that even if they bought 10 new ones, the current fan base would still demand that ALL studios keep focusing on making the same games that Sony has been doing over the last 15 years.
I also don't like how long the games have been taking to release, I don't think it was a good idea to focus on Hunter's Gathering (they should have found some way to produce both that and Horizon 3 at the same time), but man, it must be terrible to be a developer these days, spending 10 or 15 years producing two games (and two expansions) and when the opportunity to do something a little different comes in, you're basically forbidden from doing it because it's not what the "hardcore" fan base wants.
At least no one can't deny that it's funny to have spent the entire generation so far hearing that the sequels that Sony released on the PS5 were just "more of the same" (Spider-Man 2, Forbidden West, Ragnarok and Yotei) so that in the end that's exactly what people want.
@IOI - Nah, I think it's funny that everyone is sure that all studios were forced to produce live service games. Encouraged? Probably. But forced? I highly doubt it.
Guerrilla has been saying for years that it wanted to do something multiplayer in the Horizon franchise. Hell, the first concept arts for Zero Dawn showed a group of hunters chasing the machines, before the Aloy character were even created. Guerrilla even had a co-op mode in active development, which was shown in the first game's documentary.
And the same goes for Naughty Dog, I can't remember how many times I saw or read about someone from the studio saying that they were big fans of multiplayer games (Druckmann kept posting how many wins he had in PUBG for example), how big the success of Factions mode was in the first TLOU and so on.
People can't deny how cool it can be to play an online game with your friends, something that I'm sure happens a lot within these studios, which makes the developers themselves want to create something in the genre. The problem is that nowadays there are no multiplayer games that are not live service games. It is no longer possible to create a multiplayer game where it will not receive new characters, weapons, maps, modes, etc. over time.
As I said, it has become clear that some studios that are now famous for single-player games will want to do something different from time to time. And I don't know if it's a good idea for Sony to have a studio that's unhappy because they couldn't make the game they want.
It's kinda insane to me that Insomniac is the only first party studio that manages to produce multiple games at the same time (as far as we know? Might have changed with Spider-Man 2 and afterwards).
Sony DESPERATELY needs more studios. Even more so now where games take 6 to 8 years to be made and it looks like some studios will focus on areas other than the single-player games that the fan base demands.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner - They already confirmed on the announcement video that the game can be played solo and it has a story/narrative element (which will be updated with new chapters over time).
So far it doesn't look it's something I would love to play, but I'm not mad that this game exists, like a lot of people are.
What worries me most is that 99% of the current PlayStation fan base only wants and only accepts one type of game. As I said in the other post, a lot of people would have killed themselves if Sony still had that variety of games that they managed to have at the beginning of the PS3 generation.
I still don't know for sure if I'm interested or not.
But one thing that can be said with certainty is that the current fan base would probably kill itself if everyone had the PS3 at that time when Sony released a vast variety of games (including several multiplayer ones).
It's impressive that Sony has become hostage to an audience that only accepts one type of game: Third-person games focused on the single-player story. To the point where a developer has to say that they are still going to continue doing this IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER GAME.
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Re: 'PS5 Is Just a Plastic Box if It Doesn't Have Content': Sony Explains Its 'Third-Party Focused' Ecosystem
Funny thing about PS1 and PS2 generations, Sony barely had any major first party presence when it come to exclusive content. Most of the exclusives they had were from third party studios.
The generation that changed this was the PS3 where it was so bad/difficult to develop content for the hardware, that Sony had to invest in its own studios to have something stand out.
Re: Poor Start for PS5 Exclusive Saros as First Sales Data Emerges
@BroodWeasel - Killzone had 3 games in 4 years. If it was that big of a franchise for Sony, they would still be making new games today.
Might return in the future, but not by Guerrilla since they made it pretty clear that the studio wanted to move on.
And about Socom... I thought PlayStation fans didn't want more live service games?
Re: Poor Start for PS5 Exclusive Saros as First Sales Data Emerges
Coming up next: Housemarque live service game, since people don't buy their traditional single-player games.
Anyway, I guess we really won't be seeing many new IPs coming in the near future. If these studios remain open, they will probably work on franchise games like God Of War, The Last Of Us, etc., since that's what the PlayStation public clearly wants.
Re: 'We're Going to Pull Funding if You Don't Fix This': Uncharted 4 Was Almost Cancelled on PS4 Because It 'Sucked'
Schreier talks a little about Amy Hennig's version in his book.
It was supposed to be a game more focused on puzzles and character relationships (with some saying that Telltale games were an inspiration). Drake would not pick up a firearm until the second half of the game due to the "criticism" that many people had saying that the character was a serial killer.
Re: PS4 Game Expiry Timer Sparks DRM Concerns, Here's What We Know So Far
@LowDefAl - He explains that there's a kernel exploit called userland, that some specific games have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIPuXAd6KCA
Re: PS4 Game Expiry Timer Sparks DRM Concerns, Here's What We Know So Far
@AdamNovice - McDonald has a huge beef with Sony since SIE sent a cease & desist on one of his Bloodborne mods (I don't remember correctly, but I think he was distributing modified versions of the game to be played on unlocked PS4s or something like that)
Re: PS4 Game Expiry Timer Sparks DRM Concerns, Here's What We Know So Far
What impressed me the most was seeing so many people truly believing that they would have their paid games literally removed from their accounts if they didn't appear online for more than 30 days.
Of course, if there really is any new DRM practice, it's going to be horrible and everyone has to go down on Sony for it. But it's much more likely that the system will require users to go online at least once every 30 days to renew licenses, not that the game will be removed from accounts or anything like that. One user said his licenses were renewed automatically every time he went online on PSN.
Modded Warfare (of the biggest YT channels when it comes to PlayStation exploits, hacking and piracy) claims this is a way for Sony to prevent new exploits.
Re: Uncertainty Surrounds Rumoured Venom PS5 Game
@HerlockSholmes - They still have Spider-Man 3 and the rumored X-Men games to produce. But a new Ratchet and a new IP were in their pipeline. Just don't hold your breath to see those in the next 5 years.
Re: Xbox Will 'Reevaluate' Its Game Exclusivity, Throwing Potential Doubt Over PS5 Ports
It's cool to have Xbox games on PlayStation but it would be curious to see them going back to exclusives (would even include Activision and Bethesda games this time) just to see how Sony would react.
I don't know for sure if it would be a good or bad thing to see Sony becoming more aggressive when it comes to the gaming market.
Anyway, at least their new CEO is already beating both Nintendo and Sony when it comes to the number of PR statements.
Re: You Might Not Want to Know How Much It Reportedly Cost Bungie to Make Marathon
Well, Bungie has over 800 people (with over 300 of those having worked on Marathon), in one of the most expensive cities in the world today (where game developer salaries can easily exceed $250,000 annually). Yeah, it makes sense.
And I really can't see any alternative other than big publishers stopping to invest in studios in places like California, Washington and Canada.
Marathon wouldn't have cost less if it "were smaller", as the game was known for having little content at launch. Bungie going back to making single-player games also won't make the games cheaper to make (and it would be a failure for Sony since Bungie was specifically bought for its multiplayer games)
And please, it's time to stop regretting the cancellation of TLOU Online. Folks need to understand that if that game had gone ahead, we would hardly see a new single-player game from Naughty Dog anytime soon.
Re: State of Play with Third-Party PS5 Reveals Tipped for Next Week, According to Notorious Snoop
Pretty much no first party presence this time, I bet.
Re: 'It Wasn't a Live Service Game': Shuttered Sony Studio Teases Scrapped PS5 Project
@SMJ - They did not. The studio was formed within SIE.
Re: Sony's PSN Rebrand Is Well Underway, and the Clues Have Been There All Along
@Bamila - Things will still have names, but I guess Sony wants to put more emphasis on the name PlayStation itself.
A PlayStation account is required, the PlayStation services are offline, the PlayStation Store received new deals, change your PlayStation ID and so on.
Sony also removed the "Signed to PSN" row on the network test on the PS5 OS. Is just "Signed to PlayStation" now.
Re: Intergalactic PS5 Seemingly Adds The Last of Us Star to Its Cast
@Boxmonkey - Jason Schreier stated multiple times that Naughty Dog is aiming a spring 2027 release.
Impossible to know if they will hit that or not.
Re: Bizarre PlayStation PC Launcher Rumours Rubbished as Reporter Doubles Down on No More PS5 Ports
Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, Epic and Microsoft failed to pull people from Steam but somehow Sony would be able to do that. Yeah, right.
Funny that the rumor about Sony leaving the PC "market" to focus on Apple devices said (and already debunked) by Jeff Gerstmann didn't take any traction.
Re: New PS5 Firmware Update with Anticipated PSSR 2 Toggle Available Now
Really curious to see if the results of just turning on that toggle are comparable to a full native PSSR2 patch.
Re: PS Plus Premium Has Given You Just 1 Classic PlayStation Game a Month for Over Half a Year Now
It makes sense considering that Sony hires a studio that probably has less than 10 people to make these versions. As long as there isn't more people to work on this, it will continue like this (or get worse)
And it probably stopped being the selling point of the tier when they added cloud streaming (which works well on Portal).
Re: 'Exclusives Are Absolutely Not Happening': Xbox Helix Will Share Library with PS6
I still wonder how the hell Microsoft will earn any money from this device apart from the initial MSRP
Them taking their games from PlayStation would result in even less money going to them.
Re: Marathon PS5 User Reviews Remarkably Positive After String of Live Service Disasters
What do you mean people are allowed to like things I don't like?!?!
Re: PS6 Competitor from Xbox Revealed as Project Helix
Launch next year, most likely. Really curious to see if Sony will "let" them go first for a full year or not.
Re: Highguard Permanently Shuts Down on 12th March
@jFug - Well, they'll probably refocus on that again (there are already some rumors about that), but it's not like they'll give up on having their own Fortnite anytime in the near future.
If they give up completely, I think people should prepare for a new price increase on games in the next generation, because they will try to find the money somewhere.
I don't get why people are so pissed about Marathon, to be very honest. Last single-player focused game Bungie released was 17 years ago.
Re: Highguard Permanently Shuts Down on 12th March
@Dan12836666 - Well, if that game fails and Guerrilla don't have anything to release right after, I guess we can all say goodbye to the studio.
Pretty sure that's everyone wants, right?
Re: Highguard Permanently Shuts Down on 12th March
@CielloArc - Marathon will do fine, I guess at least it will last some months. Game is among the top sellers on Steam, people will play it for some time. But on the long run? Who knows.
Re: At Long Last, #DRIVE Rally Brings Its Arcadey Style to PS5 This Summer
Hopefully Super Woden Rally Edge isn't that far away as well.
Re: Marvel Tokon Making Refinements Based on Player Feedback in the Run Up to Launch
@PuppetMaster - Tekken, Street Fighter and so on.
(I really don't know how my Tekken 3 disc didn't exploded with how much I played that thing when I was a kid)
Anyway, sure, these games had new versions with more characters, but no one knew that when they were released. Today, for those who want to have the complete game, need to buy the more expensive editions that come with a season/character pass from the getgo or they need to wait for a complete version years later.
Re: Marvel Tokon Making Refinements Based on Player Feedback in the Run Up to Launch
Still a little hesitant to buy the game right at launch. Not because of the quality of the product, but because of the simple fact that all fighting games nowadays release new paid characters every year.
I grew up playing fighting games that were complete at launch, with you having to progress to unlock new characters. Now you buy the base game and you will still need to spend money on a recurring basis if you want to have all the characters.
Re: Rumour: God of War Dev Working on 'A New Franchise Within the God of War Universe'
Shinobi602 already "confirmed" that Atreus won't be the main character. Schreier saying it will "feel" like a new IP makes me think it will be a new set of characters.
Re: Amazon Walks Away from Open World Racing Game from Ex-Forza Horizon Devs
@Americansamurai1 - Oh yeah, Sony/XDEV had job listings for that studio some time ago. I had completely forgotten about it.
Re: Incoming Xbox Boss Promises a 'Renewed Commitment to Console', and 'Hears' Fans on Skipping PS5
Oh, the good old "gamer management". The company might be dying, but at least the heads play games and interact with fans online, right?
Re: Phil Spencer Stepping Down, Sarah Bond Leaving Microsoft in Huge Xbox Shake-Up
It's kind of funny that pretty much every negative news that Sony had in this generation was quickly forgotten because somehow Microsoft released even worse ones right after.
Re: Opinion: Sony's Disgraceful Bluepoint Closure Should Concern Every PS Studios Fan
@Cjam36 - Yeah, it seems pretty clear that Sony was giving priority to those who were giving pitches for live service games.
If it were something mandatory as many people say, Housemarque, Santa Monica, etc. would already be presenting theirs by now. Bluepoint for some reason thought it was a good idea.
The biggest problem is that no one at Sony stopped to say: Hey, you guys never did this, keep doing what you know and we will look for another studio to do live services. In fact, the same goes for the idea of ​​releasing 12 ***** live service games by March 2026. It's hilarious that there wasn't A SINGLE SOUL in there saying that this would never work.
Re: Opinion: Sony's Disgraceful Bluepoint Closure Should Concern Every PS Studios Fan
@Hi569 - There's a reason. Studio hasn't released anything since 2020 and was still years away from releasing anything.
But Sony's obsession with live service games was one of the reasons the studio was unable to release anything in these six years as it pivoted to that and their project got cancelled last year. In addition, they also worked as a support studio on God Of War Ragnarok.
Re: Opinion: Sony's Disgraceful Bluepoint Closure Should Concern Every PS Studios Fan
I guess that under Totoki's command, literally no studio will be safe (Naughty Dog, Santa Monica included). If a studio simply doesn't generate more money than it spends to stay open, it will be closed. "Simply" as that.
We'll probably see way more remasters, remakes and so on as these studios will be desperate to generate more money while their 5~7 year projects aren't done. And say goodbye to exciting new IPs. We'll get the same old IPs for the next 10~15 years.
It's ridiculous in a reality where big studios are struggling to deliver two games per generation seeing Sony thinking it's OK to close so many studios. They need more, not less. It won't be long before they're shipping one game a year and they will think it is completely normal.
Re: 'I'm Confident in the Direction We're Headed': Under-Fire PlayStation Boss Tries to Explain Baffling Bluepoint Closure
"Changing player behavior" = more live service being green-lit
Re: Sony Makes Shocking Decision to Shut Down Bluepoint Games
Won't be long before PlayStation Studios is able to deliver a mere single game per year. Games are taking longer to make and Sony thinks it's a good studio to close studios left and right.
Re: Sony Makes Shocking Decision to Shut Down Bluepoint Games
Buy a renowned studio that makes great remakes > encourage the studio to make a live service game > cancel the game > don't know what to do with the studio > close the studio
Hulst, Hermen.
Dude probably has more studios closed than games released under his tenure. PlayStation will end the generation with less studios than it had on the generation before.
Re: PS5's Retro God of War Game Gets the Worst Reviews in the Series
I don't know if exactly this will change anything at Sony or not, since looking at the game's production videos, it's very clear that it was the studio (Mega Cat) that had the initiative to start the project, and not Sony that went after several studios to see who would do it.
If there was any "initiative" within PlayStation to have more games like this, I think we would have heard about it by now.
Re: 'One of the Worst Decisions Ever Made': God of War Creator Tears 'Total Crap' 2D Title Apart
Amazing that nothing can be accepted for what it is anymore. Everything needs to be the biggest/best that has ever been made.
It's clearly not the best game in the world and I don't think it needs to be. I would even say that it is the right way that Sony has to fill the gaps of releases they have had. I hope they finance another 10, 20 of these.
And Jaffe getting mad because characters TALK in a game already gives me relief that he left the franchise, because if he was still in charge, we'd still be hearing Kratos screaming because he's still mad at Zeus, 20 years later.
Re: Sony's Santa Monica Studio Has Another Unannounced PS5 Project in Production
@get2sammyb - And we haven't had any confirmation if Santa Monica is the one doing most of the work on the remakes (a lot of people think that Bluepoint might be working on those as well).
It's quite possible that after God Of War 2018, most of the studio went straight to Ragnarok while smaller groups of 5~10 people started pre-producing other games. Barlog's project might have entered full production in late 2022 or early 2023.
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta Is the Long-Rumoured 2D Game, Out Now on PS5
@AdamNovice - Yeah, pre-production for a few years and then it only got the full Santa Monica team after Ragnarok released.
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta Is the Long-Rumoured 2D Game, Out Now on PS5
@Zeroo - Yeah, Shinobi602 just confirmed that Cory Barlog has been working on another game that it's not related to the remakes. It probably entered full production after Ragnarok released in 2022.
And he said earlier in the week that going by the release window they're aiming (2027?), it should be revealed this year.
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta Is the Long-Rumoured 2D Game, and It's Out Today on PS5
@Zeroo - Everybody knows they're working on another game since 2018.
Might be revealed this year, still.
Re: PS5's Wolverine Won't Be at This Week's State of Play
@themaladroit - I mean, could any other game that he worked on.
Re: Horizon Hunters Gathering Is Guerrilla's Next Big PS5 Game, Horizon 3 Still Years Away
@IOI - As I said, studios were probably encouraged to make live service games. Bigger budgets, easier to get a green light and so on.
If it were mandatory, even Santa Monica would have come up with one. Ghost Of Yotei would have been a multiplayer/coop game, Nauthty Dog and Insomniac would have been forced to release their (now cancelled) games and etc.
I guess Sony has wanted to have a big hit in the vein of Fortnite and Call Of Duty for a while. Microsoft buying half of the industry must have accelerated that by about 150%. And with more than half of the money they make coming from microtransactions that they still don't get 100% from the sale, I doubt they'll stop trying.
Re: PS5's First State of Play of 2026 Tipped for Later This Week
@get2sammyb - I was thinking that they definitely need more studios, especially in an era where most studios will be able to deliver one or two games per generation. But I think that even if they bought 10 new ones, the current fan base would still demand that ALL studios keep focusing on making the same games that Sony has been doing over the last 15 years.
I also don't like how long the games have been taking to release, I don't think it was a good idea to focus on Hunter's Gathering (they should have found some way to produce both that and Horizon 3 at the same time), but man, it must be terrible to be a developer these days, spending 10 or 15 years producing two games (and two expansions) and when the opportunity to do something a little different comes in, you're basically forbidden from doing it because it's not what the "hardcore" fan base wants.
At least no one can't deny that it's funny to have spent the entire generation so far hearing that the sequels that Sony released on the PS5 were just "more of the same" (Spider-Man 2, Forbidden West, Ragnarok and Yotei) so that in the end that's exactly what people want.
Re: Horizon Hunters Gathering Is Guerrilla's Next Big PS5 Game, Horizon 3 Still Years Away
@IOI - Nah, I think it's funny that everyone is sure that all studios were forced to produce live service games. Encouraged? Probably. But forced? I highly doubt it.
Guerrilla has been saying for years that it wanted to do something multiplayer in the Horizon franchise. Hell, the first concept arts for Zero Dawn showed a group of hunters chasing the machines, before the Aloy character were even created. Guerrilla even had a co-op mode in active development, which was shown in the first game's documentary.
And the same goes for Naughty Dog, I can't remember how many times I saw or read about someone from the studio saying that they were big fans of multiplayer games (Druckmann kept posting how many wins he had in PUBG for example), how big the success of Factions mode was in the first TLOU and so on.
People can't deny how cool it can be to play an online game with your friends, something that I'm sure happens a lot within these studios, which makes the developers themselves want to create something in the genre. The problem is that nowadays there are no multiplayer games that are not live service games. It is no longer possible to create a multiplayer game where it will not receive new characters, weapons, maps, modes, etc. over time.
As I said, it has become clear that some studios that are now famous for single-player games will want to do something different from time to time. And I don't know if it's a good idea for Sony to have a studio that's unhappy because they couldn't make the game they want.
Re: Horizon Hunters Gathering Is Guerrilla's Next Big PS5 Game, Horizon 3 Still Years Away
It's kinda insane to me that Insomniac is the only first party studio that manages to produce multiple games at the same time (as far as we know? Might have changed with Spider-Man 2 and afterwards).
Sony DESPERATELY needs more studios. Even more so now where games take 6 to 8 years to be made and it looks like some studios will focus on areas other than the single-player games that the fan base demands.
Re: Poll: What's Your Reaction to Horizon Hunters Gathering?
@PsBoxSwitchOwner - They already confirmed on the announcement video that the game can be played solo and it has a story/narrative element (which will be updated with new chapters over time).
Re: Poll: What's Your Reaction to Horizon Hunters Gathering?
So far it doesn't look it's something I would love to play, but I'm not mad that this game exists, like a lot of people are.
What worries me most is that 99% of the current PlayStation fan base only wants and only accepts one type of game. As I said in the other post, a lot of people would have killed themselves if Sony still had that variety of games that they managed to have at the beginning of the PS3 generation.
Re: Sony Finally Confirms Horizon Co-Op Game, Horizon Hunters Gathering for PS5, PC
I still don't know for sure if I'm interested or not.
But one thing that can be said with certainty is that the current fan base would probably kill itself if everyone had the PS3 at that time when Sony released a vast variety of games (including several multiplayer ones).
It's impressive that Sony has become hostage to an audience that only accepts one type of game: Third-person games focused on the single-player story. To the point where a developer has to say that they are still going to continue doing this IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER GAME.