PlayStation’s internal studios have felt fairly stagnant for a couple of years now. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gotten some incredible games from them so far this generation. Guerrilla knocked it out of the park with Horizon Forbidden West and its Burning Shores expansion; Sony Santa Monica delivered an epic conclusion to Kratos’ Norse adventures in God of War Ragnarok and its Valhalla DLC; and what more needs to be said about Insomniac Games, a team that’s proven itself to be the PlayStation Studios MVP as they’ve released a steady cadence of amazing games with Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Spider-Man 2. But although these have each been top-tier games, it’s disappointing that we haven’t received too many fresh ideas in the form of new IP from PlayStation’s biggest internal teams.
Ever since 2016, Naughty Dog’s remained in the world of The Last of Us, pumping out a sequel, a remake, a remaster, and notoriously canceling the live-service multiplayer game that was set in the universe. Guerrilla’s been neck deep in the world of Horizon since 2017, and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon with plans already made for a third game and potentially at least one multiplayer game. Sucker Punch has put out one of the most recent new IPs in the form of Ghost of Tsushima, but we can reasonably assume that they’re hard at work on a sequel to their excellent samurai title. And if the recent Insomniac hack is anything to go by, I’m not too thrilled at the prospect of the team potentially working on primarily Marvel games after Marvel’s Wolverine and the expected sequel to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, no matter how much I’ve loved their past few superhero adventures.
Now to be clear, I’m not blaming the studios for this at all. It’s a situation borne from multiple different factors. For one, there’s the fact that games simply take longer to make now than they used to. It’s hard to believe that we once got the first three mainline Uncharted games between 2007 and 2011, and then The Last of Us in 2013. Such a development process is largely unfathomable nowadays, so we end up with these long gaps between games and teams only putting out one or two titles in a generation.
Going hand-in-hand with that is how games are expensive to make, so companies are more risk-averse with AAA releases. Why take a chance on a new, unproven single-player games that’ll cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make when that same money could be put toward a reliable IP or a live-service game in the hopes that it’ll be a smash hit and turn into a new source of revenue like Fortnite is for Epic Games? And as much as PlayStation higher-ups may say they embrace the creative process and want their studios to work on the games and ideas they’re passionate about, at the end of the day it’s still a business, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bit of pressure (be that from the developers themselves or the higher-ups) to focus on proven franchises instead of taking breaks to do something different.
I want developers to make the games that they’re most passionate about, and if that means 10-plus years of The Last of Us, then so be it. The series is one of my all-time favorites, so I’m always down for more entries in the franchise if there’s a story to tell. But at the same time, I want to see these heavy-hitting teams flex their muscles and show me something I haven’t seen before from them. Let me get a Naughty Dog story in a sci-fi setting or a modern day stealth-focused adventure from Sony Santa Monica. Let’s see a high-fantasy game from Guerrilla. Something, literally anything, that’s brand new from these teams would be a breath of fresh air for not just fans or the developers, but also PlayStation as a brand.
Like I mentioned before, one of the things that PlayStation prides itself on is the constant creation of new IPs. We wouldn’t have Ghost of Tsushima without first having Infamous or Sly Cooper. There is no Horizon or The Last of Us without Killzone or Jak & Daxter. While I do miss many of those old franchises and would be happy to see them return (specifically Jak & Daxter), I’m happy that the teams moved on from them and tried something different. It also doesn’t help that we’ve seen the closure of first-party studios in recent years, such as with London Studio this past February, Pixelopus last year, and Japan Studio getting absorbed into Team Asobi in 2021. Less teams means fewer chances at new ideas, and in an era where game development is taking longer than ever, new IPs can revitalize the brand for people both in and outside the PlayStation ecosystem who have seen the same games from these studios for years now.
This is part of why I’ve been so excited by the new games we’ve received from PlayStation Studios in recent years. Returnal is still arguably the best first-party title to come out this generation. Astro’s Playroom (while technically a sequel of sorts) is a short but fun romp that’s bursting with creativity. Although I don’t play many live-service games and am not too excited at the prospect of a bunch of them coming from PlayStation Studios, I’m interested in Fairgame$ and Concord from Haven Studios and Firewalk respectively, solely for the simple fact that they’re new ideas. Days Gone developer Bend Studio has also been working on a new IP too that I’m eager to learn more about. Their second-party efforts through XDev have also caught my interest, with Helldivers II, Stellar Blade, and the mysterious Physint all being games (or “ideas” in Physint’s case) that I’m excited to eventually play.
Summer is quickly approaching and rumors are spreading that we’ll be getting some sort of PlayStation event in May, be that another State of Play or a full-blown showcase. Whatever it is, I hope we see what these teams are working on. I mentioned this earlier in the year, but it’s been a while since we heard from some of these teams and we know they have stuff in the works. I only hope that when they do step up to the plate, we’re greeted with some new faces instead of the old reliables.
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