Resistance PS3

Days Gone director Jeff Ross has said he wanted to make an open world Resistance game after developer Sony Bend couldn't get its pitch for a sequel to its 2019 title off the ground. Speaking in an interview with the controversial David Jaffe, Ross explains how Sony asked if there were any other IPs the studio would like to explore. Syphon Filter was suggested by Sony, but Ross said he actually would have liked to produce a new entry in the PlayStation 3 series Resistance and make it open world.

Jeff Ross said: "The pitch I was making was [an] open world Resistance [and] would be f*cking rad. We have all these open world loops that we figured out and it almost wrote itself with Resistance. There were so many aspects of that property that kind of lent itself to open world gameplay." However, Ross says Sony didn't seem interested in the pitch.

The Syphon Filter IP is one that was suggested to Sony Bend, but Ross says he wouldn't know what to do with a reboot of the predominantly PS1 series. "I have zero ideas on how to reboot Syphon Filter. I was not interested in that at all."

The director was also asked about Days Gone 2's failed pitch, to which he answered it was essentially dead on arrival. "It did get reviewed on a level right above the studio, but I don’t think it went any further than that. The reviews were through the lens of 'the first one was a trainwreck in so many ways and didn’t sell awesome' and 'let's just keep these guys busy'."

He goes on to explain how it became immediately clear Sony wasn't interested in a Days Gone 2 pitch. "It was clear that it was a non-starter and there was nothing in the pitch that made the local manager and his boss feel good about it. That’s probably a failure of the creative group. It was just an uphill battle."

The comments come after Ross tweeted out how he believes Days Gone had sold eight million copies — the same as Ghost of Tsushima, which Sony celebrated during its CES 2022 conference. "At the time I left Sony, Days Gone had been out for a year and a half (and a month), and sold over 8 million copies. It's since gone on to sell more, and then a million plus on Steam. Local studio management always made us feel like it was a big disappointment," he said.

[source youtube.com]