A once-beloved PlayStation studio is no more.
On Thursday, we learned that Sony Interactive Entertainment is shutting down Bluepoint Games, which had not released a game in over five years. Bluepoint made a name for itself with remakes of PlayStation classics like Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls, but as Bloomberg reports, the studio worked on a live-service God of War game after being acquired in 2021. That was canceled by Sony in early 2025, and with no new projects greenlit about a year later, the studio will shut down.
While Bluepoint may just look like yet another victim of the video game industry’s recent flurry of layoffs, studio closures, and live-service game failures, the closure is also emblematic of the biggest problems PlayStation has faced throughout the PS5 generation. This is a generation where Sony hasn’t done a good job of managing and shepherding its most beloved franchises, has released fewer games due to bloated development timelines, and has been generally inconsistent with its live-service efforts.
Bluepoint ultimately fell victim to some of the biggest mistakes that PlayStation has made throughout the PS5 era. While PlayStation looks to course correct and continue on, a studio full of talented developers who made great games no longer exists because they spent years chasing a white whale of a live-service game that the studio was not equipped to make.
Demon’s Souls (2020)
From Ghost of Yotei to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, first-party PlayStation developers have released plenty of fantastic games for PS5. Despite that, game launches have felt infrequent, and some franchises lie oddly dormant. This is a result of the elongated development times that the entire video game industry currently faces. Celebrated studios like Naughty Dog, Media Molecule, and Sony Bend didn’t release a fully original PS5 game in the system’s first five years on the market.
Bluepoint was there at the PS5’s launch with the impressive Demon’s Souls remake, but had been dormant in subsequent years as it worked on the live-service God of War game. That made its cancellation all the more brutal, as the Bluepoint team had invested years in a project that would now never see the light of day.
Meanwhile, franchises like Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Uncharted, Days Gone, and Killzone have completely fallen to the wayside with no studios to support them. One would think a remake-focused studio would be a great way to keep older franchises warm as their creators cook up something new. At the time of its acquisition, I assumed Bluepoint was primed to do just that for Sony; instead, the developers were put to work on a live-service spin-off of God of War–a single-player series already set to be serviced quite comprehensively on PS5.
We know from an IGN interview around the time of the acquisition that Bluepoint was interested in making games with more “original content.” Bluepoint President Marco Thrush declared at the time, “We have that original game development mindset in our hearts, and that’s what we’re now ready, finally ready with the support of Sony to push forward and show what we can do, and show what PlayStation can do.”
Shadow of the Colossus (2018)
Maybe that live-service God of War video game is what Bluepoint wanted to make. Even if that were the case, it was a miscalculation by Sony to take such a big chance on a studio very skilled at making one kind of game (remakes), only to task it with creating something entirely different and with an extreme level of difficulty (live service). Perhaps Bluepoint could’ve transitioned into remakes that feel like original art of their own, like Final Fantasy VII Remake.
In the end, Sony’s optimism about a future filled with popular live-service games it owned overrode those concerns. PlayStation ambitiously greenlit 12 live-service games at the start of the console generation, but announced plans to halve that number by late 2023. Helldivers 2 did become a surprise success, but Concord absolutely flopped when it launched in August 2024, while Marathon and Fairgame$ have faced pre-release backlash and skepticism from players.
We’ve certainly seen Sony pay the price for its overeagerness to get a live-service hit of its own, and for mainly investing in the biggest, most expensive AAA games from its first-party studios. By making the jump from a reliable remake studio to an experimental live-service team, Bluepoint was sadly positioned to be a victim when game industry tides changed and Sony needed to downsize to pay the price for mistakes made years earlier.
Demon’s Souls (2020)
When Sony acquired Bluepoint in 2021, then-PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst was optimistic about the merger being good for both Bluepoint and PlayStation. “It’s good for them because they get to do what they love most, and it’s great for us because there’s even more focus by Bluepoint on what we want, and that is amazing content, amazing games to come out of Bluepoint,” he told IGN.
As he announced Bluepoint’s closure in 2026 as the Studio Business Group CEO at Sony Interactive Entertainment, Hulst called Bluepoint a “talented team” that “delivered exceptional experiences” in an internal email leaked on ResetEra. That said, he also seems to think PlayStation will do just fine without them:
“While I know this is hard news to hear, I’m confident in the direction we’re headed. Creativity, innovation, and building unforgettable experiences for players remain at the heart of PlayStation Studios. We have a robust roadmap for FY26, with much to look forward to in the months ahead.”
Hulst is focused on steering the ship back in the right direction before the PS6 (eventually) arrives. The “roughly 70” affected developers from Bluepoint won’t be part of that vision, as they’re paying the price for mistakes that PlayStation made.
Bluepoint was a studio that could’ve leaned into its strengths to support older franchises and longer development times make supporting so many less tenable for PlayStation. Instead, PlayStation mismanaged the promising company, letting it spend nearly half a decade making a live-service God of War game that was outside its wheelhouse and canned before it could see the light of day.
Now, Sony has ensured that Bluepoint will never make another remake again.