Bend Studio, the developer behind Days Gone, remains committed to creating exciting new games despite Sony's cancellation of their unannounced live-service title. This follows Sony's recent decision to scrap two unannounced live-service projects – one from Bend Studio and another from Bluepoint Games (reportedly a God of War live-service game, according to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg). While Sony confirmed the cancellations, assuring that neither studio would be closed and future projects would be explored, the move highlights the challenges Sony has faced in the live-service market.

Sony's foray into live-service gaming has been a mixed bag. While Helldivers 2, developed by Arrowhead, achieved phenomenal success (becoming PlayStation Studios' fastest-selling game ever), other ventures have faltered. The disastrous launch and subsequent closure of Concord stands as a significant setback, prompting Sony to conduct a post-mortem analysis. This follows the earlier cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project. Even former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida voiced his reservations about Sony's aggressive push into live-service games.

Bend Studio's community manager, Kevin McAllister, offered reassurance to fans via Twitter, stating their intention to continue developing "cool shit." Their last major release was Days Gone in 2019 (with a PC port in 2021).

Sony's financial reports shed light on the lessons learned from both the triumph of Helldivers 2 and the failure of Concord. Hiroki Totoki, Sony's president, COO, and CFO, attributed Concord's failure to several factors, including delayed user testing and internal evaluations, a siloed organizational structure hindering cross-departmental collaboration, and an unfortunate release window that may have resulted in market cannibalization with Black Myth: Wukong. Sadahiko Hayakawa, Sony's senior vice president for finance and IR, emphasized the importance of sharing lessons learned from both successes and failures to improve future development strategies.

Despite these setbacks, Sony continues to invest in live-service games, with titles like Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$ still in development. The future of Sony's live-service strategy remains to be seen, but the company's commitment to learning from past mistakes is evident.