PlayStation Forms New First-Party Studio Dark Outlaws Games Led by Jason Blundell - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 17 March 2025 / 3,456 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment has formed a new first-party PlayStation studio, Dark Outlaw Games.
The studio is headed by the lead creator of the Call of Duty Zombies mode Jason Blundell. He worked at Activision for 13 years and would leave in 2020 to be a co-founder of Deviation Games. The studio had partnered with PlayStation, however, it would shut down in March 2024.
Blundell confirmed on The Jeff Gerstmann Show on YouTube that Dark Outlaw Games is "staffing up" and details on the first game from the studio will be shared in the future.
"I’ve had the amazing opportunity to create a new studio within PlayStation Studios for Sony," said Blundell (via VideoGamesChronicle). "The studio is called Dark Outlaw. We've been working away in the shadows for a while, when we've got something to talk about we'll step out into the light."
He added, "It's such a privilege to be able to do it with Sony as a new first-party studio, Sony doesn't start up first-party studios all the time, so to have that privilege is humbling."
Blundell did say the studio has been going "for a little bit of time" and "it's about getting the team to gel. I'm a programmer at heart so let's test those assumptions, is it working?… You're trying to hit that escape velocity."
Blundell is the studio head and director at Dark Outlaw Games.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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Maybe they will actually release a game in the next decade
Wonder if they will be shutdown before or after they release their first game?
So, Deviation Games was an independent studio, but it was also partnering exclusively with Sony for its first game before shutting down. Jason Blundell is of course famous for Call of Duty Zombies. It's quite probable that Deviation was working on a live-service game, and that title was shut down as part of Sony's broader efforts to scale back its live service affairs in light of Concord. Maybe Dark Outlaw Games is now working on a single-player title. Doesn't completely explain why Deviation had to go belly up and Jason to start yet another new studio, but sometimes that is how those things go.
"Jason to start yet another new studio"
I do want to point out that Jason left over a year before the studio shut down.
Deviation games was formed by 2 founders and there was some kind of schism apparently. Blundell left the studio as he didn’t agree with the other co-founder.
It looks like Sony decided to go with Blundell over the remaining Deviation games guys. They brought him in house and gave him the resources to make his own team and at some point around this time cut funding for the Deviation games project. Deviation games tried to shop the game around but couldn’t secure funding.
Creating jobs? Did they not get the memo?
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