Earlier this week, Sony announced internally it was closing Dark Outlaw Games, a PlayStation studio recently founded by ex-Call of Duty lead Jason Blundell. A day later, Blundell and streamer JCbackfire, who was a level designer at the studio, appeared on Twitch together to decompress after the unexpected news. “You’re gonna morn what could have been because we were making a hell of a game,” Blundell said.
The veteran developer made clear up at the front that there was no ill will toward Sony, calling them great partners throughout the process. But a shift in strategy ended up leaving Dark Outlaw Games on the chopping block. “It fucking sucked,” Blundell and JCbackfire said about the finding out the bad news this week. “We have to respect confidentiality so we can’t go into every gory detail,” Blundell added. “Long story short, we are unemployed,” said JCbackfire.
Dark Outlaw Games was revealed last spring with Blundell fathering talent for a new first-party project that the team was incubating. Sony’s decision to fund Blundell’s latest venture came after a previous project at Deviation Games misfired and was ultimately canceled in 2024. Many took it as a sign that even though the rest of Sony’s live service plans were struggling, it believed in Blundell’s pitch and ability to grow a new IP and studio from scratch.
“I can reassure you and it’s been reassured to me it’s just times change, focus changes, but the project we were doing and what we were doing, fans would have been very excited,” Blundell said during the stream. He chalked Sony’s decision to bail up to the nature of the business and one of the burdens that goes along with the craft of making games. JCbackfire noted that he’s only been working on the development sides of games for five years now, and already all of his time was spent on things people will never get to see or play.
“The sentiment is definitely we’re down but not out,” JCbackfire said.
