It’s a great year for PlayStation 5 titles, isn’t it? Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is out on June 26th and looks to be bigger and better than the original in almost every way. Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yōtei arrives on October 2nd and looks even bigger and better than its predecessor in nearly every way. And then there’s, well, not much else, but surely it’s better than last year where Astro Bot was the only real standout.
Remember when Sony said that Ghost of Yōtei marked the beginning of plans to launch “major single-player games titles every year?” That really came back to haunt me recently when the company highlighted Death Stranding 2 and Ghost of Yōtei as its big single-player offerings for the rest of the fiscal year. And the next? Well, it hasn’t said anything, but Marvel’s Wolverine and Intergalactic are coming. Eventually. There’s at least Housemarque’s Saros, which has a confirmed 2026 release window. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZ8w6clqo4
Of course, what the company doesn’t want to admit is how much of a failure its live service initiative has been or how much it set back its many studios (the ones still around, that is). When it closed 2023 with Naughty Dog cancelling The Last of Us standalone multiplayer title, it probably didn’t expect Helldivers 2 to become such a massive hit. Thus, it continued to fulfill Jim Ryan’s ambitious plan to release over 10 live service titles before April 2026.
It’s now June 2025. The report card currently sits at three more projects confirmed to be cancelled before they even saw the light of day, much less an announcement trailer. SIE London Studio is gone. Bend Studio recently faced layoffs and is apparently trying to come up with something new. Bluepoint Games is still a relative unknown. The rumored Twisted Metal and Insomniac’s Spider-Man: Great Web are allegedly canned. Fairgame$ (which is now reportedly Fairgames sans dollar sign) is in trouble with Haven Studios founder Jade Raymond gone and no updates since the CGI trailer from two years ago. An alleged external playtest was reportedly met with a mixed response, with some apparently describing the battle royale/extraction shooter experience as borrowing elements from Fortnite and The Division.
I forgot that a Horizon multiplayer title was in the works, and you did too.
And I would go, “The less said about Concord, perhaps the biggest first-party failure in Sony’s history, the better.” However, at a reported cost of $200 million, which didn’t include the price of acquiring Firewalk Studios or the game’s rights (and didn’t even fully fund development), that statement doesn’t do enough justice to the sheer damage caused.
Then there’s Marathon, and where do we even begin? An iffy reveal that lacked the energy of the first trailer. “Varied” feedback from its closed alpha, according to Sony – a neat euphemism for “mixed, leaning negative.” Annoyances at the lack of content. And, of course, the controversy involving the unauthorized use of an independent artist’s assets. The damage is apparently so extensive that Bungie hasn’t showcased anything new ever since. Perhaps the biggest positive is that it delayed the game past September 23rd and is looking to polish the game further, including adding proximity chat. As it stands, the most impressive thing is the CG trailer, which may as well exist in a different universe.
Where did it all go so wrong? How did a publisher for some of the greatest triple-A single-player titles in the world fall so far? How did the PS5 have more incredible first-party titles at launch than the entirety of last year (and no, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered doesn’t count)? Yes, there are some great games to look forward to this year, and there’s only a three-month gap or so between Death Stranding 2 and Ghost of Yōtei, but the future is looking very iffy. The fact that Microsoft, of all companies, has published more titles this year than Sony, both third and first-party, is truly fascinating, and its future first-party offerings look much more enticing between Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, the next Forza, State of Decay 3, Perfect Dark, and Clockwork Revolution.
At what point did the powers that be at Sony decide a brand known for its incredible franchises should sweep them under the rug in favor of making a quick buck? When did it decide that names like Uncharted, Sly Cooper, LittleBigPlanet, Until Dawn (barring the iffy remake), Jak and Daxter, Syphon Filter, MotorStorm, inFamous, Killzone, Resistance, and so on should be kept on ice? Heck, even The Last of Us, for that matter. It’s been five years since The Last of Us Part 2 was released, and there are still no signs of a sequel or any kind of follow-up or continuation. Then again, at least Naughty Dog has other titles in the works, including an announced project that Neil Druckmann is producing.
What makes the situation even sadder is that these decisions are negatively impacting the company itself. Outside of layoffs, there’s also the money and time wasted on these cancelled projects. Imagine if Bluepoint Games was working on the eternally rumored Bloodborne remaster. What if Motorstorm made a comeback with even better visuals and larger environments? What if, and stay with me here, a sequel to Days Gone? The latter seems somewhat possible somewhere down the line, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when.
Is it worse than Sony continuing to invest in Marathon and Fairgames, which could either be duds or disasters in the making? Honestly, choose the lesser evil at this point. Similar to Concord, it’s probably a case of Sony trying to recoup some of the cash already invested in these titles. Sadly, it’s not. In Sony’s recent Fireside Chat with investors, PlayStation Studios head Herment Hulst said the company remains “very committed to building a diverse and resilient live service portfolio.”
While acknowledging the “challenges” of Concord, he added, “We have reviewed our processes to ensure that we’re not going to make those mistakes again. We have introduced much more rigorous processes for validating our creative, commercial, and development assumptions, and we now do that on a much more ongoing basis.” Oh, and the goal with Marathon is to release a “very bold, very innovative and deeply engaging title.” This was before the announced delay, but the message is clear: Sony isn’t done with live service by a long shot, even after all the failures.
The damage isn’t irreparable, especially when considering an entire console generation. You could also argue that Sony doesn’t need to think about how many first-party titles it’s releasing. After all, the PS5 has reportedly earned more profit than the PlayStation 1 through 4 combined. It hosted some excellent third-party games this generation, including Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Black Myth: Wukong and Silent Hill 2 remake.
There’s even Lost Soul Aside to look forward to, even with the multiple delays throughout the years, to say nothing of all the ChinaHero projects – Daba: Land of Water Scar, Exiledge, The Winds Rising, the list goes on. Granted, AI Limit and Evotinction are games that came and went without much impact, but they’re certainly smaller scale compared to the other heavy hitters.
However, it seems we’ve gone beyond “arrogant Sony” and straight into the realm of “indifferent Sony,” where it seemingly can pivot to and from a failed initiative without worrying that players will stop buying the PS5. And if you don’t get a new game in your favorite franchise, much less a first-party title, well, isn’t that a shame? Maybe in the next generation.
As someone who spent dozens of hours in Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, I still remember looking back on the initial announcement of the initiative and thinking, “Okay, but that’s way too much.” It seemed like Sony didn’t fully grasp why Legends – and even Factions from The Last of Us – was so great and popular, but surely it wouldn’t mess up, right? At this point, with its stubborn commitment to finding some success in the live-service space, I can only hope that it moves forward and sticks to what it does best. The only thing worse than chasing trends that your fans are sick of is chasing those that they never really cared for in the first place.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.