Jason Blundell, an experienced game developer best known for his work with Call of Duty franchise, has announced that he is founding a new studio. The announcement follows Sony's abrupt closure of Dark Outlaw Games, which Blundell was previously responsible for. The move was another example in a string of first-party PlayStation studios closing their doors.
Blundell's most notable contributions to the industry come from Call of Dutys Zombies mode, creates the chaos story found in Black Ops game. He made headlines when he left Activision-Blizzard in 2021 to work for the ill-fated Deviation Games for a little over a year. In March 2025, PlayStation announced that they had brought Blundell on to lead Dark Outlaw Games, which was discontinued in March 2026.
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Introducing Magic Fractal
During a livestream with former Dark Outlaw Games JC Farmer, Blundell revealed that he is starting a new studio, MagicFractal. However, little is known about the studio and what it works on. The company's website is essentially a placeholder with a contact form, and Blundell gave no indication of what's going on during the live stream. Farmer and Blundell asked fans to follow the Magic Fractal Twitter account, which has around 9,300 followers as of this writing, as a show of support for the studio.
Dark Outlaw Studios' project was unannounced, but Blundell has confirmed that it didn't work on anything live service-related. Since the project never saw the light of day, it's possible that MagicFractal has a solid conceptual base to work from if Blundell can use some of Dark Outlaw's scrapped ideas. Of course, it's equally possible that the team is starting something entirely new, given how litigious the gaming industry can be.
While it's a shame that Dark Outlaw Studios shut down in the first place, it's at least good to see Blundell staying on his feet with a new studio. With the gaming industry in such a tough state, it helps to have promising up-and-comers to root for, and given the speed with which Magic Fractal's social media account has found a following, it seems the players are largely on Blundell and co's side. With any luck, they'll be able to keep that goodwill long enough to see their game release.
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On the other hand, games are closing all too often, and they've hit the Xbox and PlayStation hard lately. For Sony's part, if there's a pattern in the tea leaves from recent layoffs, it's too abstract to say anything definitive about its strategy. Firewalk Studios closed the following Harmonyflopped, while beloved studio Bluepoint Games shut down despite acclaim Demon souls remake alongside the PS5's release. With both the live service and single player games getting the axe, it seems that Sony is mostly focusing on cost savings.
One can hope that there are better days ahead for a struggling gaming industry, but in the meantime, gamers will just have to hope that new studios fill the gaps left by those that remain. To that end, we hope Magic Fractal gets going.
