Sony has abandoned several promising projects in recent years. One of these could have been a new game from Santa Monica Studio, the creators of God of War.
Former PlayStation head Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that two major PlayStation projects were shut down after each had absorbed about $25 million. Among them was a new intellectual property from Santa Monica.
Yoshida noted that the project was a new brand (not another installment of God of War) with an "extraordinary concept" and "very interesting gameplay ideas." Development had been underway for several years, and PlayStation had been constantly investing millions of dollars in it.
At one point, the team approached Yoshida with a message about the need to stop work. According to him, they probably "failed to find the right form of the game" — the idea looked great on paper, but the gameplay did not reach the required level.
This is not the only project that has been canceled. Yoshida also mentioned a second major project, also with a budget of about $25 million, which was being developed under his supervision at Worldwide Studios. Despite the strong ideas of European studios, from London Studio to Guerrilla Games, one of the major games "did not have a solid gameplay core" and was shut down.
Yoshida emphasized that such decisions are always difficult: the team continues to hope for the project to be saved, but if the work does not produce results, there is a risk of developer burnout. Therefore, he advises to do a "fresh restart" and start something new, instead of getting stuck in a project that will never take shape.
