The monumental failure of PlayStation’s Hero Shooter Concord from last year seems to have put a massive stopper on a bunch of Sony’s previously-established live-service plans. Despite the console maker continuing to outwardly support the notion of more games-as-a-service releases, last week’s cancellation of both a live-service God of War from Bluepoint Games – and a similar title from Sony Bend – was reportedly indeed due to Concord flopping.

Last week, it was reported that both Bluepoint Games and Sony Bend were working on different live-service experiences for PlayStation, with the former being based on the God of War IP.

At the time, no specifics were given as to why these cancellations took place. Though it seemed somewhat obvious, known industry insider Jeff Grubb has now confirmed that Concord’s lack of success was indeed a major factor, saying during the ‘Game Mess’ podcast: “[The cancellations] happened because of Concord, like this should be clear, that's what I've been told.”

Grubb continued, “Sony has been shell shocked from Concord and now they're going around to every studio and they're reassessing every single project, and if it's a live service project, it has a lot of friction going against it preventing it from getting a chance to actually come out.”

Of course, for the sake of investors, it benefits Sony to continue pretending that all is well in its land of live-services. That said, this latest leak seems to paint a slightly different – albeit more realistic– picture.

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While Sony has continued to release first-party titles at a regular cadence, two studios which have been unaccounted for these past many years have been Bluepoint Games and Sony’s Bend Studio. According to industry journalist Jason Schreier, both teams were working on live-service titles which have since been cancelled – including a new God of War game from Bluepoint.

As shared by Jason Schreier on Blue Sky (and detailed further via a paywalled article on Bloomberg), Sony has reportedly “canceled two more live-service games, from subsidiaries Bend and Bluepoint,” adding “Fans have long wondered what Bluepoint has been working on for the last couple of years. I can report it was a live-service God of War game.”

Details on Bend Studio’s cancelled project were not shared, however, according to Schreier, Bluepoint Games were assisting Sony Santa Monica with God of War Ragnarök up until 2022 – at which point they began work on the now-canned God of War live-service experience.

Fortunately, these cancellations will hopefully have relatively little impact on the teams themselves, with a spokesperson confirming to Schreier that Sony is “working closely with Bend and Bluepoint to determine what are the next projects and plan to do everything we can to ensure there is minimal business impact.”

Speculation on what these two studios have been working has persisted for years now. Unfortunately, with both titles now cancelled, we will have to continue wondering. Hopefully these weren’t the only games both teams were working on.

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KitGuru says: Are you surprised by the report? How could a live-service God of War work? What do you want to see from Bluepoint/Bend in the wake of this news? Let us know down below.