Studio acquisitions have become increasingly common in the games industry over the last decade, yet that doesn’t always lead to a bright future for some developers.
Most of the biggest games releasing every year are third party titles, with developers like Rockstar, EA, and Ubisoft remaining independent from those in control of the hardware side of things.
For games consoles to be successful, however, many require there to be a steady flow of great first party releases — and that’s argubaly why PlayStation has dominated Xbox since the eighth generation began.
Microsoft certainly tried to change that with a barrage of high-profile acquisitions, bringing studios like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard into the fray, and Sony also followed suit with purchases of their own.
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One of the most celebrated in recent years was Sony’s acquisition of Bluepoint Games, who had built up a reputation for its work remastering iconic titles for PlayStation.
While Bluepoint was officially purchased in September 2021, the studio had forged a strong partnership with Sony over the years, releasing HD collections for the God of War, Metal Gear Solid, and Uncharted games.
This was capped off with the complete remake of Demon’s Souls in 2020 as a launch title for the PlayStation 5, bringing the 2009 FromSoftware classic into the modern age with a fresh coat of paint, yet things have seemingly only gone downhill from there.
As reported by Bloomberg, Sony has now made the decision to shut down Bluepoint entirely, leaving many PlayStation fans both shocked and disappointed in response to the news.
“Bluepoint made one of the best remakes in gaming history,” one user on X remarked, claiming that “the industry is broken” as a result.
While the studio hadn’t released a game since Demon’s Souls, it was reportedly working on a live service God of War title that has since been cancelled, which has proven to be another point of frustration for many.
“They hired a team to make remakes, the first one was Demon’s Souls remake, then they put them to make some live service slop that no one wants, then half way through development they fire everybody and close the studio,” questioned another user, with a third chiming in to argue that “canceling the live service God of War game was a good idea.”
This is seemingly not the only live service effort that Sony has canned across the last few years, with similar efforts for the Horizon and The Last of Us IPs shut down by Sony.
Following the disastrous release of Concord this shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise, but it’s still stings for many gamers who have enjoyed the work that Bluepoint have put out over the last decade and a half.