PlayStation platform-holder Sony has released some solid games this generation, but it’s also suffered from some destructive fumbles. The company has made several unpopular choices in the past few years, including a recent and shocking increase in the price of PS5s, and no PS5 exclusive has really succeeded to the same extent that Concord failed.
But among Sony’s most infamous missteps of the decade, its bullish pursuit of live services is its most egregious. Former Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan notoriously spearheaded an initiative to launch 12 live-service games by 2026, much to the chagrin of consumers who favored PlayStation for its strong single-player titles. Granted, this initiative has been scaled back—it’s 2026 now, and the PS5 has only gotten two first-party live-services, not 12—but this hasn’t come without its consequences. Indeed, while pulling back on live-service games is perhaps the right decision for Sony, changing tracks has involved some tragic sacrifices.
The Worst Decisions of the PS5 Era
The PlayStation 5 has done quite nicely for itself, but it hasn’t been without its controversies, which have kept the console from being truly great.
Studios That Sony Has (Probably) Closed Because of Its Live-Service Mission
- Firewalk Studio
- London Studio
- Neon Koi
- Bluepoint Games
Sony has shuttered quite a few development houses in recent years, and much of this can be attributed, at least partially, to the company’s live-service missteps. Of course, we have the unfortunate Firewalk Studio, maker of Concord, which was purchased by Sony in 2023 only to close in 2024, just two months after Concord was axed. Concord was the studio’s first and only release. It closed alongside Neon Koi, another Sony subsidiary that was developing a live-service mobile game.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
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Another Sony-owned studio was shut down in 2024, though this one was more storied. London Studio was founded in 2022 as Sony Interactive Entertainment London before changing its name in 2016. It had garnered some acclaim for its work on the SingStar and Getaway franchises, though it was working on a live-service action game codenamed Camden before it was shut down. Granted, this closure was part of a broader round of layoffs conducted by Sony at the time, but the fact that Camden was scrapped rather than transferred to another studio suggests that the elimination of the game is connected to the elimination of the studio.
Finally, we have Bluepoint Games, a closure that, for my money, is the most baffling of them all. Bluepoint primarily developed remakes, which are widely considered among the best of their kind. This is especially true for Shadow of the Colossus (2018) and Demon’s Souls (2020), which both earned rave reviews for being faithful recreations of their respective source material. Bluepoint was said to have been working on a God of War live-service game, which Bloomberg reported was canceled in 2025; Sony announced that Bluepoint was shutting down in February 2026. Again, while Sony hasn’t explicitly linked Bluepoint’s closure to the defunct God of War live-service game, it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t at least play a role in the decision.
The same can be said of other Sony studios, such as Dark Outlaw Games and JapanStudio, whose doors closed this decade as well. While these studios weren’t reported to be working on live services themselves, the money-hemorrhaging associated with scrapping so many in-development games may have indirectly led to their demise. At the very least, Sony might have pegged these studios as “weak links” ready to be trimmed in order to recoup some losses.
Live-Service Games Sony Has Canceled During the PS5 Era
- Bend Studios live service
- Twisted Metal live service
- The Last of Us live service
- Spider-Man: The Great Web (Insomniac Spider-Man Live Service)
- London Studio live service
- Neon Koi live service
- Bungie’s code-named Operation Payback
- God of War live service
- Concord
- Destruction AllStars
- Camden
As previously mentioned, many individual games were either canceled or taken offline as part of Sony’s studio-culling: Camden, Concord, Neon Koi’s live-service, and the God of War live-service were all scrapped in conjunction with, or shortly before, their respective studios. Several live services have shut down independent of their development teams, including Destructive AllStars, which was delisted in May 2026. Make no mistake, Sony’s live-service reckoning is still ongoing.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
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Thinking of cases like Bluepoint Games’, the cancellation of so many live-service titles seems especially unsettling. After all, Bluepoint was deemed safe in early 2024, when news of the God of War game’s cancellation broke, only to be closed a year later. Giants like Insomniac and Naughty Dog probably won’t get shut down as a result of their canceled Spider-Man and Last of Us live service games, but can the same be said for the likes of Bend Studios or Destruction AllStars creator Lucid Games? Bungie scrapped Operation Payback (which was widely speculated to be Destiny 3) and moved forward with Marathon, but if that game doesn’t pan out in the long run, then perhaps even Bungie won’t be safe.
On a personal note, I’m conflicted about Sony’s backpedaling in this space. On the one hand, live-service games are arguably absolutely bad for the industry, and I would certainly prefer a new single-player God of War over a God of War live-service. If more resources find their way to such single-player games as a result of killing the aforementioned live services, that’s good. But at the same time, the thought of talented teams like Bluepoint Games and London Studio being put out to pasture due to Sony’s misguided live-service chase is incredibly frustrating. It’s not for me to say whether these closures are good business or not, but they certainly feel wasteful, and we may never know what great games the likes of Bluepoint would have made, had they survived this purge.
