PlayStation is Shutting Down Bluepoint Games - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 19 February 2026 / 7,898 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment is shutting down Bluepoint Games "following a recent business review," according to a PlayStation spokesperson that spoke with Bloomberg.
The video game developer had about 70 employees that will be losing their jobs with the studio closure, which will close its doors next month.
"Bluepoint Games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community," said the spokesperson. "We thank them for their passion, creativity and craftmanship."
Bluepoint Games was founded in 2006 and acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in September 2021. The studio last released 2020's Demon's Souls remake for the PlayStation 5.
The developer had been working on a live-service God of War game that was cancelled in January 2025.
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 follow the author on Bluesky.
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So one of the greatest single player remake studios of all time is getting shut down because they were forced to make a live service game god of war that was cancelled. Sonys live service push has been one of the worst decision they’ve ever made.
They weren't forced to make anything. Bluepoint chose to make a GAAS project and Sony chose to cancel it. Bluepoint made it known since eveen before being acquired that they wanted to create original games going forward and it has never been the parent company dictating which projects get pitched.
The parent company dictates which projects get approved. Sony has been very adamant about how they're wanting to spend their money.
And are you thinking they wouldn't approve another remake from bluepoint the way housemarque got another roguelite shooter and sucker punch got another open world samurai game? bluepoint didn't want to make remakes anymore they made that immediately clear.
SOny never decreased funding for singleplayer games either. And even Shuhei Yoshida made it clear that the live service push never impacted single player projects.
Edit:Playstation aimed to initially have 12 live service games launch in less than 5 years. There is no way they were not mandating/pushing most of their studios to work on a live service games in order to reach that initial goal.
I wouldn't say with confidence GAAS was Bluepoints preference. Bend already stated they weren't able to make the initial game they pitched because Sony said no. If Sony is doing a live service push, they obviously would mandate some portion of their developers make some. I think it's naive to assume to otherwise.
I hope Sony's paying you well for your allegiance to the corporation.
"SOny never decreased funding for singleplayer games either"
Yeah, but they didn't increase it either. If your overall budget stays the same and you have bigger games competing over it, then you're going to have fewer games.
They didn't force studios to work on anything specific. But if you're telling studios that they're going to have an easier time getting funding if you propose an online game, that's what's going to happen.
I am SO disappointed like words can't describe it, they're the reason i fell in love with SOTC thanks to the remake, they're the reason i was able to discover fromsoftware's first soulslike thanks to their remake, i really wish the best in the future to all the staff
You should really do yourself a favor and play the original version instead or even bluepoint's ps3 hd version.
I have, but without bluepoint i would have never bothered to play the og version is my point
So basically, they took a studio that was famous for being extremely talented at remaking existing single player games and put them to work on a live-service game that I'm not sure anyone wanted, cancelled the project and are now shutting them down. This exact same story just keeps repeating time after time. I don't understand why so many publishers insist on putting talented studios known for single player games on these live service projects.
Bluepoint chose themselves that their big first original project would be a god of war live service, it didn't work out and was canceled and they couldn't figure out what to do next. I care for the jobs lost but it was a case of a studio having no direction.
What is your source for this sentiment that they had a choice between GAAS or a single player game?
He doesn't unsurprisingly.
That’s not how development works. We have more than enough evidence from just this generation to show that Sony would have pushed them to make a service game.
Just because a studio is making a game they want to make, doesn’t mean the publisher (Sony in this case) isn’t influencing design and pulling the strings. Another Sony example is SOCOM 4. Zipper wanted to make SOCOM 4, but numerous developers confirmed Sony forced them to basically make it a crappy CoD clone and mandated the elements of the game that fans didn’t like. Sony closed the down after it released.
Just look at Sony’s releases this gen. Not exactly a plethora of new single player franchises. Returnal and…. that’s it? Why would they allow Bluepoint to make one in the middle of their GaaS diarrhea?
Oh...
My...
God...
If BluePoint isn't safe... who the hell is?
2009 - GoW Collection
2011 - ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection; MGS HD Collection
2015 - Uncharted Collection; Gravity Rush Remastered
2018 - Shadow of the Colossus Remake
2020 - Demons Souls Remake
I have played and loved every game they have delivered except Gravity Rush
How was it NOT decided to have Bluepoint go from the cancelled live service God of War game to heading development on the God of War trilogy remake???
Like, the perfect opportunity was right there!
It is possible that some workers are getting moved over to santa monica for that purpose even if Jason hasn't reported that yet. they were already support for Ragnarok. It really would make no sense to drop all that entirely on the existing santa monica studio when they had a floundering studio with expertise in that area lying around.
Delivered consistent quality during times where that's become rarer and rarer. What a shame.
"Stephen Totilo/Game File: Sony acquired 7 game studios since 2020 — Three already got shutdown, and other two suffered layoffs "
And gamers were all cheering on as Sony and Microsoft purchased all these companies.
So a studio that existed and thrived on their own from 2006 to 2021
Got acquired by "Good Guy" Sony to make live service slop
And closed the doors only 5 years later without releasing a single game
The next time I see someone defending a video game studio acquisition by either Sony or Microsoft I stg.
If anything they might have benefited from sony dictating their projects instead. they seemed adamant they only wanted to work on original games going forward. if sony forced remakes and remasters on them they might have had multiple releases already in the past 5 years. Sony aren't as hands off as microsoft but in both cases they are probably too hands off.
Whhhyyy??? They were THE experts on remakes/remasters. I always thought it was cool that Playstation had studio dedicated to that.
They stopped being dedicated to that since after demon's souls remake. they had gotten so many full devs that they wanted to make new games. With that sort of ambition i feel this would have happened anyway. they were never going to stick to remakes.
So, of the 8 studios that Sony acquired between 2021 and 2023, 3 have now been closed (Bluepoint, Neon Koi, and Firewalk), and 2 others suffered pretty heavy layoffs and/or game cancellations. Another of those, Firesprite, was apparently a huge mess, supposedly after Sony acquired them crunch was implemented to get Horizon Call of the Mountain out in time, and most of their employees and all but one of their founders quit in protest immediately after they got their bonus check from shipping the game, and then Sony moved some XDev leadership to Firesprite to take over, and there were reports of sexual discrimination and ageism about that new leadership from XDev.
One thing is for sure, Jim Ryan's live service push was an unmitigated disaster, Concord flopped, Haven's Fairgames had an abysmal like/dislike ratio on it's reveal and will probably flop if it actually releases, live service games for The Last of Us (Naughty Dog), God of War (BluePoint), and Twisted Metal (Firesprite) cancelled, Sony Bend's unnamed live service game cancelled.
Maybe they should have remained independent.
Super talented people, you can trust to do remake/remasters.... Why not just let them do what their good at? This GaaS focus is messed up.
clowns, the one studio worth the benefit of the doubt they close.
Sony buys a studio specialised in remastering and remaking games and doing good job at it to make them working on a live service GoW game. It fails, they shut the studio down. FU Sony.
FUCK!!! Like, fucking hell!? I mean, get your fucking shit together Sony, another studio shutdown!?? Stop burning fucking money!! Give us Fucking games!! Stop bleeding money and talent you fucker!!
Now I fear for the future of Housemarques and Media Molecule!
What the hell these people made almost perfect renakes of games
...I worry when Sony seems to take lessons from Xbox.
And down the drain when my hopes to see my favorite franchises remade with current tech...
Odd it's coming from Bloomberg, not actually Sony. Stupid. They make record revenue and it's not enough to keep what is essentially a very talented, and actually quite small, studio open?
Playstation needs new heads, ones that are going to actually expand their business, not stifle it.
I will never understand how Media Molecule is still open and studios like BP get shut down.
Presumably they do have a promising project in the works which BP apparently didn't. But you never know.
Probably costs, Media Molecule is based in England with much lower salarys vs BP based in the US with much higher salaries.
I'm not to sure about the Texas tax code but even then that would not cover the diffrence in cost. A US based employee probably makes double what one would in the UK. I know that if I were to move to the UK I probably wouldn't make a third of what I do now. Plus most takes breaks come with stipulations and complince with those can sometimes make it not even worth applying for.
Do not worry plenty of time left this year to shut down Bend, MM and others like Housemarque is Saros doesn't sell enough.
MMs game actually materialized and was crazy impressive even if it flopped, on paper Sony was very impressed and probably just wants them to do something with more commercially geared next time.
Its different from spending 5 years on a game that gets cancelled. Sad situation anyway
What the actual fuck Sony. The Demon's Souls remake was incredible, and clearly showed this studio was capable of great single player games. Instead you stick them with another shitty online service game that you sink millions into, cancel anyways because its looking like ass and nobody asked for it. Then sack the entire studio? Microsoft levels of idiocy here.
Whoever on Sony decided to close Bluepoint Games instead of giving them a remake to work on after one of their stupid live service failures:
My most sincere FUCK YOU.
Maybe they did but Bluepoint couldn't work out what to do. The GoW service games that was cancelled was cancelled well over a year ago, if the company had been sitting twiddling their thumbs since and not really worked on anything substantial, are Sony really obliged to keep paying them for nothing?
Why not direct them to some other project instead? Until they come up with a good promising project they work on what Sony has planned to them.
Sony is in the interest of the studio success, if it is not able to do it now, Sony needs to have a plan on what to do with it for a while. They can't possibly not have any kind of management plans for all their studios, it's idiotic.
It is, so the question would be, why would Sony not think like this? We can only assume they do... or did but thought it wasn't worth it, whether the time or money to get them on something else. That was the management plan.
A stupid one in my view too but there is a reason I'm not in upper management.
Jim Ryan's legacy continues to haunt us. Terrible news.
Im still blaming GamePass for this decision. RIP BP
Are you kidding me, Sony!? You had a great dev for remaking/remastering games like Shadow of the Colossus and Demon Souls, and you decide to throw them away like trash!?
Thats sad for the BP employees but lucky for all the other game studios based in Austin who can probably scoop up the talent.
Tough blow. Bend Studio is likely on the hot seat too.
I guess they didn't prove they're capable of doing more than remakes and Sony decided that they don't want or need just a remake studio.
Remakes and Ports is literally all anyone ever wanted from them
They were the best at it and Sony's inaccessible back catalog is immeasurable
You really will defend anything Sony does.
I wasn't defending anyone? How does this even get interpreted as "defence"?
How can you not interpret what you said as defense.
All I said was that I'm guessing Sony wasn't impressed by their non remake work and decided that the cost of the studio isn't worth it for remakes only. It's just my guess as to what happened to cause them dropping Bluepoint. I don't see how that constitutes a "defense"
Considering how well some remakes sell... Not entirely sure how you can up with such a conclusion?
Sony is in a commanding position in the console market and remakes isn't exactly going to impress the shareholders. An explosively successful GAAS will however. Sony took a risk with them and gave them GAAS task and it didn't work out. For Sony though, they can easily eat this loss and it was worth the risk of GAAS success or total failure.
I'm really sad they are being shut down, I loved their Demon Souls remake
My bet is they were falling to deliver new games in an acceptable state, only working with remakes/remasters
This is bullshit. Can't believe Sony wasted 3 billion on that overrated and over valued developer who isn't even worth more than 100 million and closed down talented studios like bluepoint and Japan studio.
FFS Sony get your shit together!!
This is absolutely ridiculous! The studio are extremely talented and Sony have plenty of IP's in desperate need of a remaster/remake (I mean people have been practically begging for a Bloodborne remake) so surely it would make sense to retain the utilise the team rather than disband. The live-service push by Sony will absolutely go down as a major reason this console generation for Playstation was 'meh' :(
Studios should think very hard before becoming part of PlayStation. It's basically a one strike out culture at PS unless you are part of the big 4.
They haven't produced a game in a looooonnnnng time
There goes the chance of an ICO remake...
So Sony wont do anything with the Demon Souls and Bloodborne IPs. Just give them back to From Software already.
It's sad, and people are outraged about this, but Sony has their business reasons to do this and we don't have their information, so it is what it is.
But media molecule is still active?? This must be a fucking joke
