Los Angeles-based developer Deviation Games has closed down, the studio announced.
Sammy: "Sony disastrously and disgracefully shuttered Texas-based fan favourite Bluepoint yesterday. The long-time PS Studios partner never got a chance to ship a game under its new parent company.
This news hit me particularly hard because I believe it reflects the erosion of once-great PlayStation management that I think we’ve all been feeling for quite some time."
How was this allowed to happen? A studio know for excellent remakes and remasters were put on a GOW live service game? Something nobody wanted? There are so many other, more interesting projects, for me they were the prime studio who should have remastered or remade Bloodborne, what an absolute waste, I'm really annoyed about this.
Hulst should have followed Jim Ryan out the door, especially after his failed concord brainchild, execs really do only fail upwards.
You say "no body wanted" but we don't actually know if the Devs were the ones to pitch it. For all we know
If that was the case you would have thought Sony would have told Bluepoint no & had them make the God Of War trilogy remake instead while having Santa Monica Studios concentrate on the next God Of War & what ever else they're working on. A Bloodborne remake/remaster would have definitely printed Sony millions. It seems the upper management doesn't care what the fans think including them making awful business decisions. To take Bluepoint under their wing for 5 years & dismantle them is crazy work, Sony should have auctioned Bluepoint off to to a company that could really use them.
If the really did pitch it then they would have wanted their own IP for being a brand new game, not using someone else’s IP when it’s not a remake this time.
I mean I guess, but doubt that a small team of 70 wanted to do a live service game, I don't buy it personally, but we'll never 100% know.
i think you are half right. sony became hyper-focused on live service games and given that, studios would then pitch live service games because those projects were the most likely to be greenlit by the higher ups. now, as for what the hell bluepoint was working on since their god of war game was cancelled is beyond me. it's just increasingly frustrating when sony just announced a god of remake which is still in its infancy when bluepoint could have been working on it for years and likely would have shipped it by now.
We had a god of war mp in the past and it didn’t do well back then with less competition so doubtful people wanted a live service game especially from devs that made some top tier remakes
Copium like this is the reason they're in this position. Sony could do no wrong and when something did go wrong, it's never the corporate suits at sony who are to blame.....its either: devs bad or ms/phil spencer bad while their own backyard is on fire. This is the result of not caring what your fav company does just because another company does (way) worse and automatically condoning everything. I hope they can turn it around without having to fuck over their customers more because especially some of the games on ps1 through ps3 were absolutely amazing.
Can't really say im surprised it's gotten to this point although I didn't expect them to close Bluepoint who has always delivered stellar work.
The devs didn’t pitch it. It’s already been discussed publicly. They had literally just started on a new undisclosed project they were still in the initial ideas phase when they were asked to stop and do GoW instead.
Everyone keeps asking for a Bloodborne remaster or remake — a game that genuinely deserves preservation and modernization. Instead, we got a remake of The Last of Us and then a remaster of The Last of Us Part II, both of which were already recent and widely available. That decision feels tone-deaf. It’s hard not to question priorities when so many legacy titles are untouched.
Bluepoint built its reputation on honoring PlayStation’s history. They were masters at remakes and remasters. There is an entire catalog — from PS1, PS2, and PS3 eras — that fans would celebrate. Yet instead of leveraging that strength, they were redirected toward live service ambitions. Six years later, there’s nothing to show, and now the studio is gone. That’s not just disappointing — it feels like wasted potential.
Sony Bend is another example. Days Gone 2 wasn’t greenlit, and the studio was reportedly shifted toward live service. Years later, that project was canceled, and they’re back at square one. That’s years of development time lost in a generation that already feels light on first-party output.
What’s even more concerning is the broader shift. PlayStation used to thrive on bold, risk-taking single-player projects and strong Japanese creative influence. Now the strategy appears more Western-focused and heavily driven by the live service model — where multiple failures are acceptable as long as one becomes a breakout success.
Competition used to push Sony to take creative risks. The PS3 vs. Xbox 360 era forced innovation. Today, Xbox has shifted direction, Nintendo operates independently in its own lane, and Sony doesn’t feel the same competitive pressure. Without that tension, the urgency to push boundaries seems diminished.
The frustration many fans feel isn’t just about one remake or one canceled project — it’s about a sense that PlayStation’s identity is drifting. And while loyalty is natural, defending every decision without criticism doesn’t help the platform grow.
It’s not anger because we hate PlayStation. It’s frustration because we care about what it used to represent
Jack tretton
Shawn laden
Andrew house
Kaz
Shu Yoshida
These people aren't walking through the doors anymore
It does concern me that they think closing amazing studios like Bluepoint and Japan Studios is smart.
I'm honestly surprised Media Molecule is still around. They put out what 1 game in the past 10+ years? I personally wasn't interested in Dreams, so they have been a wash for me since the PS3 era. Are they working on a new game? What are they doing?
I immediately recalled when they shut down Japan Studio. I don’t understand why any studio would agree to be acquired by Sony, EA, or Microsoft with their history of studio closures.
Frustrating news, for sure. Hulst is on a major losing streak. Baffling decisions....
They could of let them do a Remakes of Sly, Jak and Daxter maybe the old Killzone games. Ported Demon Souls to other platforms. Steady revenue for growth becoming a 70 team to 100+ eventually.
Precisely! PlayStation have a rich back catalogue that is screaming out for a talented team like those at Bluepoint to work their magic upon.
Such wasted potential. And a terrible thing to happen to those talented workers at Bluepoint.
Demon's Souls remake was the gateway to FromSoft games for me. I'd fully beaten Bloodborne, but had struggled to get into Dark Souls. Demon's Souls - as a launch title - showed me how these games are meant to be played.
As a PS Fan and someone that looks to new exsperiences not rehashing old ones I can feel for the devs but it does not move the needle as far as getting new video games.
The company says these reductions are part of its larger cost-cutting plan that included a major restructuring and the closure of its Halifax studio.
Just lay off the whole video game industry that's how it looks. Everything is filled with greed and AI shit all over.
Kotaku writes: "So many teams were told to pivot to live-service, only for that plan to blow up in Sony’s face, and now it’s having to deal with all of that and is doing so in the fashion you’d expect from a large multinational corporation: layoffs, cuts, closures, and shutdowns."
Replies(1)Greed, overconfidence, agendas, western focused, and live service really changed em...6 years and barely any knockouts as great as the previous gens...what a generation ps5 has.
PlayStation needs restructuring. Make Japan their main HQ and focus again. It's what made the previous gens so special and of great quality without all this BS. Bluepoint being closed down among their other great smaller studios has really gotten me disappointed in them.
I completely agree with this and it needs to happen. Japan Studio and Bluepoint should have never been closed in the first place. What stupid decisions.
As a Playstation fan who moved over to Pc few years back coming to see this news is just sad man. This isn't our playstation. Sadly this time around there is no xbox360 to push Sony towards what made them special. Now playstation is just another company
Blue point games closure hits hard because they were masters of remakes and remssters. If only Sony would have offered them their legacy catalog and said go nuts remakes/remasters older games. Instead Sony bend and bluepoint were both pushed towards live service and 6 years in we have yet to see any returns and now BP is closed. Gaming overall is dying, what we grew up with don't exist, a lot of the great talent in big studios have left/retired and new people just don't have the passion. They are all about inclusion, agendas and treating it like a job instead of believing in their passion
I will miss the PS2/3/360 Era that was the golden age where risks were allowed now it's all about over budgets and playing it safe
This entire generation has been a wash so far, when it comes to next gen they're going to have to redeem themselves before I actually buy it.
Replies(5)Fckn Jim Ryan and Herman Hulst, The deadly dumb duo. I dislike those guys for what they've done to Sony. Fire this man, seriously.
The problem is Sony is making record profits so I don't see them forcing him out.
I’ve seen a lot of upset over bluepoints closure, and I have to ask. Wasn’t blue points main point to be the studio that converted their games to PC and Remakes. I know the rumor of them having a GAAS GoW is out there but even that being said, they were pretty much just doing that.
If most of the studios are doing their own remakes now (Santa Monica) and most games that are worth a damn are already remade and updated. That would just leave them with an original game. Which I don’t think we’ve heard anything pitched from them since they were acquired.
There are loads of ps1/Ps2 games that could be remade. If they wouldn't have been forced to do a GaaS title I'm sure we would have got another remake of something else.
That still doesn’t really say a lot, again, if the studios behind the games are being remade by the developers who made the game. And the same studio now being familiar with making their PC ports day and date without outsourcing to bluepoint.
The question remains what evidence do we have to support that bluepoint ever had a functional new IP to leverage after they didn’t deliver the GaaS title they were put on?
This is a fair question to ask, because again aside from Demon Souls there’s been nothing else I heard from this studio in the pipeline. And if ports and remakes was all they had that’s unfortunately kind of on them for not having something to standout with and rally interest.
It's not up to them to say what they were working on, all that has to be approved by Sony. As devs depart, I'm willing to bet what happened will leak out. We will find out if they were mandated to do a GaaS or if it was their idea. But to act like there isn't a single game in Sony backlog that could be remade is disingenuous.
I never said there isn’t work to be done or that there wasn’t remakes that could’ve been made. I said, there hasn’t been any showings from them to suggests they were working on anything as an independent studio. And all of this hate seems manufactured.
If your best argument is that we will have to wait for leaks on what they were working on to be angry at the closure. Then you are asking me to be angry over nothing until something is provided.
That’s disingenuous, not me asking WHAT were they up to before hand. Again, all I knew they were good for was remakes and remasters of content that other studios technically could do themselves.
So, since you have only told me what you wish they did on games you also did not have evidence of existing. I’m not very pressed to say anything on this studios closure except I wish the best for the impacted employees.
Unfortunate ngl I hope deviation makes another studio.
It really does feel like Sony is scaling down on their live service plans. Also think that's why 2024 i fairly barren firstpartyvise.
Not that this particular studio is first party.
Say..have these guys made anything?
Edit: never mind, i found it.
-Founded in 2020.
- working on a live service ip for playstation.
Industry is so fragile right now it feels like it's crashing