Let the studio make the game THEY want to make. As long as they have the creative freedom and as long as they aren't being forced to make something they don't want to make I am fine with that. I look at Clair 33 and I look at Helldivers 2 and one thing that stands out about both of these games is that the studios are both very passionate about their work even though it is clearly different.

I mean there's been so many stories over Days Gone 2 where I don't even know if the multiplayer sequel idea could even be true.

First, it was Days Gone tanked in terms of sales to the point Sony wasn’t interested in a sequel.

Next there is there was a pitch for a sequel that would be a multiplayer and have a shared world but apparently they didn't like that within the studio.

After that it was said the game actually did sell well (according to Ross apparently) and it was the best selling game in Bends history yet Sony still wasn’t happy.

The latest story we have in the past year or so was that Bend themselves cancelled the sequel without actually pitching the idea to Sony. They never bothered.

@Foxtrot

Good lord! 🤦‍♂️ A real shame cause while i felt Days Gine was very flawed, i also thought it was an amazing foundation for a sequel. Nothing come.close to fighting the hoards on Days gone, the planning and execution for larger hoards is sa incredibly satisfying

Eh. Jim sucks, but at the end of the day, the public face of many companies only exist to justify the direction the board wants to take. They're functionally a lightning rod for all criticism. Microsoft axed Mattrick, not because I think Xbox One was his idea, but because the optics of bringing in new blood just looks better. So they dropped someone who looks more corporate and brought in an "average Joe" gamer to implement parts of the original Xbox One plan in slow motion and repackaged it.

However, when a company branch is on top of the competition, the board tends to give more flexibility to the company face, but still need to implement their vision (which is where Ryan comes in). His tweaks around the edges weren't great, but his departure in favor of a seasoned game studio head (Hulst) and financial expert (Nishino) really shows they want to be a Japanese company with appeal to the west and prioritize game quality, but with heavy financial regulations in place. Ultimately, I think the money people won out, but maybe it's in response to the tariff stuff.

I think Sony affords their heads more agency than Microsoft so we can definitely say Jim screwed things up, but again, only to a certain extent.

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse