Deviation Games' PS5 Exclusive Project Doesn't Appear to Be Progressing Well

Can't say I'm gutted as I didn't even know what game they were making or what it looked like. Hopefully going forward Sony partner up with studio's with actual good track record first.

At least it seems like Sony gets rid of the problem before releasing a ***** product

Ever since Jason Blundell's really sudden exit, I've been very dubious about Deviation's future. Something clearly wasn't working behind-the-scenes, so I can't say I'm surprised this project might not be going well.

Meh, at least they didn't but this one before releasing anything like other studios. Better to know now that they aren't elite so expectations and budget can go down.

@nomither6 If the project sucked and was in poor condition and wasn’t likely to be improved without bringing in another team and burning more cash, why would they want to do that?

This easily COULD be the best decision but considering you and I DONT know that state of the project, we can’t make an accurate statement.

With that said, there is no reason to bash Sony in this instance since again, you don’t know that state of things.

@UltimateOtaku91 They already do that though, and you hold them at fault for trying to find a promising studio?

I’m really not trying to defend Sony for just operating a business with common sense.

@nomither6 "good PR" and Ryan in the same comment LOL. That's how you know someone is just talking sh*t for that sweet sweet attention.
"SMH"
"

@KaijuKaiser quality control is cancelling games?

“ we need them to release every single thing”

only in our dreams could something so good like that ever be true

Sucks but it happens. Sony already canned much bigger games before (wasn't Santa Monica making its own third person Destiny-style game before "rebooting" God Of War?)

But I believe it proves even more that Sony still needs more studios, because you can't rely so much on third party content going forward.

@nomither6 What did Jim Ryan do to you to earn so much hatred lol.

@nomither6 geez you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here with you're reasons why Sony suck. Scalebound was an announced game, that got majorly hyped up and folk were looking forward to, and was cancelled 2 years later… in 2016.. and you're getting mad that an unannounced game with zero details is likely cancelled ? Maybe you should get off the internet once in a while and learn to chill

@Areus nah , hate is a strong word , i don’t know him & i don’t hate him . i’m talking strictly Play$tation & he just happens to be the head

@nomither6 If That's the case Herman Hulst is the one you should be looking at at chances are he's the one making these calls not jim.

Damn. So surprised. Since they opened a second studio.

Welp. They have enough studios anyways.

@Areus good point ! it’s usually the 1 in the shadows that’s behind it all & not the one that’s always in the forefront

@nomither6

Because xbox one had no games!!!

That's why scalebound cancellation was bad.

Yisus. People need to understand this. Not that hard.

Shu "Yosp" Yoshida not long ago spoke of as one time Sony Worldwide Studios exec the difficulty of deciding which internal projects to cancel,but also how expensive AAA dev has gotten.

That said,its clear under Hermen Hulst/Jim Ryan, the focus in the last couple of years is shifting away from single player focused internal made games to either online only live service ones or a mix of single player & likely online multiplayer like a GTA like open world model.
In turn studios like Pixel Opus or others have either been closed or seen veterans depart.

And with Shu Yoshida now heading the 3rd Party Indie Initiatives with Greg Rice (ex Double Fine), future AA type single player titles like Last Guardian,SOTC,or other "quirky" ones seem likely to either be 3rd party or timed exclusives like Kena,Bugsnax external stuff.
Hulst/Ryan are targeting "prestige Blockbuster" like Wolverine,Spiderman & then the slew of Multiplayer "secret project" ones.

Likely to be profitable? For the successful ideas probably...but the Shawn Layden era that did more quirky gambles &/or bring back classic era stuff like Medievil or Shadow of the Beast that touch on the classic back catalogue of PS1/PS2 era seems far less likely. Hulst never really seems to come across as a fan of PS1/2/3 Sony unless it was the mainstream titles.
For better or worse,this does seem the PS5 strategy...just have to roll with it or be forced onto the Gamepass schlock.

@GodofCapcom as a Xbox user i agree. We needed games on Xbox One, even tho i think Titanfall on Xbox one was the best multiplayer shooter i ever played and i almost cried when i knew the franchise wasn’t going to do well after 2.

@nomither6 I think the context matters. People (including xbox fans) were mad at them over Scalebound because:
1) Kamiya and Platinum Games hung Xbox out to dry and stayed quiet while they faced backlash when the cancelation was announced, only to speak up years later from feeling bad that they failed to meet the dev milestones they agreed to and were flubbing the project
2) It was a cancelation made after showcasing multiple "real gameplay" trailers and building an audience
3) it was a unique AAA game, and a Japanese one at that, in a time when Xbox was fighting the stigma of struggling to release much of both, only to be canned

In Deviation's case, it's hard to be upset. Unlike Platinum Games who is a much more widely known studio, Deviation is a startup with very little info to go on, and even what people have suggested about their game (supposedly a 3rd person coop RPG shooter) is just a rumor. There's no gameplay that has been shared to go off of or hype anyone up. As for games, Sony has been pretty consistent about delivering them across both PS4 and PS5, so if one that no one can even put a face to or give concrete details about falls through the cracks, it doesn't feel like a loss; we know of plenty more coming. Speaking of, we don't even know if this game has been dropped, Deviation opened a Canadian studio to hire more people after the initial 100 staff were already hard at work, so we could be seeing a response to overstaffing

@nomither6 “you make it sound like sony didn’t even give them a chance or try to take any risks . thanks for proving my point , lol”

I fail to see how it proves your point or how they never gave them a chance or took any risks… the very fact they were funded to make a game at all was a risk and them being giving a chance. If whatever their project is indeed cancelled then it wasn’t good enough, simple as that. Though you know this and are clearly just trolling… so go back under your bridge already

It definitely seems like some sort of internal review of all the studios and partners is currently happening. There's been a whole lot of news about stuff seemingly getting cut loose. Which happens, and probably isn't abnormal. Only you can prevent Redfall, after all.

it sounds like an issue with in the studio itself , it also feels like people forget sony doesn't own the studio , im sure they weren't happy with the direction of the studio , but as of now till its official its just a rumor.

@pyrobolt I put trolls like him on my ignore list.

That's too bad. Of the brand new studios Sony has cut some deals with this one was one that I was more interested in. Hopefully everyone lands on their feet.

Didn't this developer have something like 300+ workers at one point?

Isnt there Playstation studios still looking for new workers?

@nomither6

I rather have games be cut instead of grounded, sea of thieves, crackdown 3, halo infinite, redfall, bleeding edge being released.

All people defending xbox at this moment should really shut their mouth. 1 miserable decade, maybe more since 360 last years weren't that good either.

All you have is halo, gears as forza and units sellers and two of them are not as good as they used to be, and indie games don't cover that.

Just stop complaining for no good reason. Go back to your dead on arrival box. None of xbox fans have the right to speak and complain about other consoles and I'm serious with that.

@nomither6 It sounds like you have confirmation that the game has been canned, can you share it?

While I agree that Sony makes/partners with a lot of big blockbuster movie like games, I would like to bring up Returnal, Sackboy, Astro’s Playroom, Stray, Tchia as recent examples where that wasn’t the case.

I don’t see how losing it on Sony for a possible (likely?) scenario has any benefits besides just screaming into the air?

@GodofCapcom all these accusations and presumptions just for me mentioning Xbox as an example.

ain’t nobody defending nothing dude , & if i wanna criticize the big 3 about anything then i will, they don’t pay my bills or feed me, so i don’t see a problem.

@jimbouk He's a troll from purexbox who hates everything Playstation.

That sucks. They have their reasons but that's two games down already. Games that will not get made and will not be in PlayStation's lineup.

@nomither6 I didn’t give them hell for it. If it needed to be cancelled, it is what it is.

@Areus I've posed the same question many times especially considering that Sony has been in their best state since his arrival. As a business consultant myself, I live by what's good for the business is good for the community and what's good for the community is bad for the business. Jim practices this to a fault.

It was a mp only title, so no loss there.

@GodofCapcom why should Xbox users shut there mouth. For all your moaning about games like Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Bleeding Edge & Redfall is that there all popular genres that Sony is now trying to adopt. Like Microsoft there is gonna be hits & misses. What should worry Sony fans is that even though Sony are doing well sale wise they could be slipping down the same path Microsoft did. Closing Studios, canceling games, releasing broken games (PC ports) & if there online service gamble fails they've tarnished there franchises which could take years for them to recover. Another problem is if the cancellation kills Deviation Games then Sony will start getting a reputation like the one you claim Microsoft has that it ruins everything it touches.

I think it's a shame people have lost their jobs. As far as the game goes I have no idea what it was. But from my POV if it was a decent single player game with optional co-op I would have been interested but anything that's online only or forces multiplayer? No thanks.

@nomither6 Jim Ryan could literally cure cancer and you'd still be here posting "another L for Jim Ryan". World War III could start and you'd still post "another L for Jim Ryan".

Dear God. Some people are just broken records. The obsession is real and sad.

'The team consisted of a lot of Call of Duty and Destiny veterans'

So they were working on a potential Call of Duty replacement, but as it's looking like the merger has been blocked they can shut the studio down.

@Powerplay94 exactly. Even Santa Monica, was not safe from getting one of their big games cancelled. If memory serves it was a sci-fi RPG. They were gutted when it happened but that's how we ended up with God of War on ps4.

That's why I said it's weird for sony make announcement before we get any news on the games that the studio make, just announce the games rather than the studio exclusivity arrangements.

Was this the studio making the cod killer everyone kept mentioning?

@wiiware damned if they do, damned if they don't.

@naruball I think it's better if sony just focus on games announcement rather than studio arrangements announcement. Just let it go on the background and make the gaming website that report it rather than announcing it on psblog and in the end the studio didn't make a new games.

When Publishers Green Light a Project, whether that's their 'own' studio's or investing in a 3rd Party to make their game 'exclusively', they have a budget in mind based on how well they think that game will sell if it delivers on its potential.

At some point, they may reach that budget and reassess whether its worth putting more cash into it and potentially risk losing some of that 'profit' margin, that the 'extra' cost would make the project a big loss and better to cancel or can give them a 'bit' more time, get out what they have as quick as possible and recoup some 'cash'.

With Scalebound, MS had to make a decision and based on what we subsequently heard, MS realised that the game was 'too far' off to invest more money - to even get it 'out' and with XB1's 'poor' sales, were not expecting it to 'sell' enough copies to recover any additional costs having already delayed it...

The same could be true here. That Sony don't believe that this Product would sell enough to justify the extra costs necessary to bring the game out. They may expect it to sell just 2m for example if 'perfect' at launch and just about break even if it releases today but if you add another 'year' onto development, its still expected to sell around 2m, but now needs to sell 4m to break even due to extra 'costs' invested.

We will probably not here the truth behind these type of situations at all but my guess is that Sony doesn't think it would sell more to justify further investment...

@RonnieL the only silver lining is that Bleeding Edge was a low budget passion project like Grounded & Pentiment. Sony's will be AAA budget titles but like I said before there is gonna be hits & misses.

@BeerIsAwesome yup! Good point. Forgot about that one

@cragis0001 studios close and games get canceled all the time. We just hear about it more now because information is easier then ever to access. But it’s nothing new in video games. And it sounds like the studio has more issues then just Sony being involved when one of the founders leaves at the start.

@twitchtvpat we will probably never know what the full story is. & I agree with everything you've said about it being standard practice games being cancelled & devs closing down. It's still not a good look though for Sony buying up a studio to close another & a game being cancelled. If it was Microsoft doing this it would be more evidence of mismanagement.

Shame for people losing their jobs. Especially before anything’s been released.

Shame to see people losing their jobs, hopefully they land on their feet soon.

@cragis0001

Hahahaha those multiplayer games haven't been released or even shown. I don't know why people expect them to be bad lol. Sony has made great multiplayer games back then. Sony makes duds but they completely make up for it with other games.

And I completely disagree. Them doing this means to me they're laser focused in quality. Same thing with the kotor remake, final strike studios game and other games they have cancelled. Gladly would prefer this instead of releasing whatever into the wild like MS does.

People can complain about sony, but when it's complained about while using xbox as comparison that's just funny to me. Xbox is trash atm. There's no reason to have one and I'm gladly buying the next nintendo instead. No console manufacturor has survived two bad console gens. People investing on it should just know they're throwing their money away as I think the support for the console will end in a few years.

@cragis0001

There is no bias when it comes to microsoft. When both of them close/cancel a project, has multiple delays/too long of a development cycle, it will obviously be worse for microsoft since they don't have almost anything to make up for it. I wish people could understand this a little bit better.

Sony releases a dud in a sea of big amazing titles, it's fine. Microsoft releases a dud in a sea of dissapointing games, now that is a problem.

So until that changes I don't want any comparisons about xbox vs any of the other two. They're just not on the same level. Not even a quarter close where they should be.

Games don't matter my azz. Nintendo is literally alive for that only reason. What a horrible leader to have in xbox atm.

@GodofCapcom people think the multiplayer titles will be bad because most are. Also it's not what they want from Sony. You say if Sony release a dud it's ok as they make up with it with others. What others? as so far most studios are making some sort of online title. Last time I seen a publisher force there devs to push online in there titles it didn't work out well. You say cancellation are a sign of quality but then the Last of Us releases on PC as badly as Redfall on Xbox. Unfortunately people are always gonna compare Sony & Xbox as long as they compete a similar strategy regardless of game quality. I find it funny that Sony is pushing all there Devs & acquiring studios solely for online titles which there community don't want but Xbox is slowly adopting a mixture of single player, multiplayer AA/AAA titles. I agree no one has survived two bad generations but Microsoft has deep pockets & so far support from the CEO. I can't see them ditching console yet. Plus Spencer said good games like Starfield won't make people ditch there PlayStation. It will Likely make you buy a second console like you plan Nintendo's next one. I love Nintendo games myself. I always have but don't like the switch even though my son has one.

Great to hear this. I'm not a fan of substandard games being released.

@cragis0001

"most of them are bad"
and none of them are from sony so this is irrelevant.

Most single player games are bad, but sony rarely makes one.

You mean the hardcore single player minority that don't play multiplayer games doesn't want multiplayer?

Um? God of war, returnal, demon souls, spider-man 2, horizon, ratchet...

and you have no clue what they're making because we don't know sony's full pipeline lmao.

Oooof, a PC port from a game that was well received on console that most people already played while other pc ports have been good (besides HZD) is such a bad view. How will Sony recover?

Xbox doesn't compete with Sony. They're clearly incapable of that at this point.

I don't see why Sony trying to please the single and multiplayer crowd is such a negative thing! What would pushsquare community do with their 90% of single player sony games that have been released? the end is neeear!!!

Kekekekeke caw caw caw "Cried" you need to get some fresh air young man.

The approach of Sony to acquire talent is understandable, you want people who do a good job, but at the same time nobody can be forced to stay at a company (thank goodness) so it makes little sense in my eyes.
If Sony focuses on acquiring studios/publishers with loved IP's and promising technologies, those are things that can't just quit and leave. And when you offer good conditions the talent will come, work on something known and when settled come up with fresh ideas.

@cragis0001 in all fairness they didn't buy them , they were just funding their game. like i said its all rumor at the momment. for all we know they could have laid off people and sony is bringing in people from the studio that shut down. or they weren't happy with the progress of the game , and they no longer wanted to fund it. im just waiting for some type of official word about this myself.

@TheMysticOne Why Would Sony cancel a great game? Even with the deal falling through i dont believe any publisher would drop a a new chance at tons of cash.

Oh surprise surprise another online co op shooter. Won't be missed by me then.

@Flaming_Kaiser Hi, i was just suggesting that if in 10 years time there was no call of duty on PS Sony may have been looking to fill the void.
If there is no void to fill, it is going to be incredibly difficult to prize those players away. Sometimes no matter how good the game is.

Sony will make a bucket load of money from Call of duty, so why spend hundreds of millions when they don't have to.

@Faraz27 Meanwhile crybabbies moun for closing down the concrete genie developer of 9 people 🤣

@2here2there
They fired 9 devs, sony is done.

The green camp really has a baaaaaaad sense of what equals to what lmao.

Not the best name for a studio that wants to stay on track.

@cragis0001 sony doesn't own Deviation lol

@RonnieL you are correct no one wants passion projects that bad. But I'm sure the team learned a great deal from it's failure which will help improve there next.

@Falkirk4life I don't think I ever said Sony did own Deviation?

@twitchtvpat I'll clarify. that I was aware Sony didn't own Deviation. What I meant was they recently purchased Firewalk just as there closing PixelOpus & now Deviations game being cancelled

@cragis0001 as of this comment the game isn’t canceled , it’s just rumor and assumptions atm.