Days Gone Director Issues Statement After Bend Studio Game Cancellation

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Summary

  • Days Gone director John Garvin empathizes with Bend Studio over its recently canceled live service game.

  • Garvin believes Bend Studios' developers had “no choice” when it came to PlayStation's decision to cancel the project.

  • Bend Studio is currently deciding on its next project, and there is a possibility that the team could return to single-player games.

Following the recently canceled Bend Studios live service project, Days gone director John Garvin has expressed empathy for PlayStation's first-party team. Although Garvin left Bend Studio in 2020 due to rumored internal turmoil surrounding a Days gone sequel, the former director still seems to have a soft spot for the developers working at the studio.

It was recently reported that PlayStation has canceled two upcoming live service projects from Bluepoint Games and Bend Studio, two of the platform holder's first-party teams. While the time and resources wasted on these now-cancelled projects is unfortunate, the cancellation of Bend Studios' games was a bigger concern for many PlayStation fans. Bend Studio was last released Days gone in 2019, after which there was presumably some turmoil among studio leadership over the game's sequel. This ultimately led to Jeff Ross and John Garvin both leaving Days gones directors and Bend Studio begin work on a brand new IP.

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days gone by director upset playstation 30th anniversary trailer

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Days Gone Director unhappy with PlayStation 30th anniversary video

Days Gone director expresses displeasure with Sony for excluding Bend Studios' game from PlayStation's 30th anniversary video.

Bend Studio didn't reveal much about its original project, other than that it would be exploited Days gones open world system and includes multiplayer elements. However, in December 2024, some leaked UI concept images suggested that Bend Studios' next game was a live-service military shooter. Now that the project has been cancelled, Days gone director John Garvin recently took to Twitter to sympathize with the affected Bend Studio staffsaying that “this is a time for empathy,” regardless of anyone's views on live service gaming or PlayStation's first-party strategy. Garvin added that he hopes for the best for Bend Studio, a sentiment that will no doubt be appreciated by the developers.

Days Gone Director John Garvin Suggests Bend Studio Developers Had 'No Choice' About Latest Game Outage

In a separate thread, Garvin responded to a tweet about the PlayStation community's supposed disdain for live-service first-party games, stating that while the notion is “true,” it doesn't make it “suck any less for the developers who have no choice.” It seems that Garvin is convinced that Sony itself chose to end development of Bend Studios' live service games rather than the developers, which can only be true since the cancellation took place after a recent first-party PlayStation portfolio review.

PlayStation is said to be working closely with Bend Studio to best determine which project the studio should tackle next. Given that PlayStation's live service efforts have stumbled mightily in recent years, it seems quite likely that Bend Studio could return to its roots and develop a single-player game, perhaps even the much-requested Days gone continuation. Unfortunately, the long development cycles of AAA games make it all too likely that PlayStation fans won't hear from Bend Studio until a few years into the PS6 generation.

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