Why Sony Shut Down Bluepoint Games: The Inside Story [2025]

When Sony announced the closure of Bluepoint Games in December 2024, the gaming world felt a particular sting. This wasn't just another studio layoff in an industry that's grown numb to them. This was the shutdown of one of PlayStation's most technically brilliant, most respected creative teams. The studio that brought us the breathtaking Demon's Souls remake and the technically masterful Shadow of the Colossus remaster was being dismantled.

The news dropped quietly, almost casually. According to Engadget, Sony had decided to close the studio following "a recent business review." Around 70 employees would be out of work by March 2025. The company released a statement thanking them for their "passion, creativity and craftsmanship." Professional. Corporate. Devoid of the weight this decision actually carried.

But here's what makes this story worth understanding: Bluepoint Games wasn't shut down because it failed at what it was supposed to do. It was shut down because Sony tried to force it into something it was never meant to be.

This is the story of a studio caught between legacy success and corporate strategic missteps. It's about how even technical excellence can't save you when the business strategy around you collapses. And it's a cautionary tale about what happens when publishers prioritize untested game categories over proven expertise.

Let's dig into what actually happened here.

TL; DR

• Bluepoint specialized in remakes: The studio built its reputation on technically stunning remakes like Demon's Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, and updating 2018's God of War
• Sony pivoted them to live-service: After success with remakes, Sony tasked Bluepoint with developing a God of War live-service game, which was cancelled in 2025
• The live-service graveyard: Sony's live-service strategy collapsed spectacularly with Concord shutting down weeks after launch and Firewalk Studios closing entirely
• Lack of strategic clarity: The shutdown suggests Sony didn't have a coherent plan for Bluepoint after the live-service bet fell through
• 70 jobs lost: The closure eliminated an entire team of experienced developers in a brutal March 2025 layoff

Industry data suggests that less than 20% of new live-service games achieve profitability, indicating a high failure rate in this business model. Estimated data.

What Bluepoint Games Actually Was: A Studio Built on Technical Excellence

Bluepoint wasn't trying to be the next big narrative-driven adventure studio. It wasn't building sprawling open worlds or pioneering new gameplay mechanics. Instead, Bluepoint carved out something genuinely rare in gaming: a reputation for technical mastery in the remake space.

The studio's track record speaks for itself. They didn't just update old games for new hardware. They architected fundamental reimagining of how classic titles could function on modern systems. When they took Shadow of the Colossus—released in 2005 on PlayStation 2—and rebuilt it from the ground up for PlayStation 4 in 2018, they didn't just bump up the resolution. They rewrote the engine, reimagined the camera system, and transformed a technically impressive PS2 game into something that still holds up visually against games released in 2024.

That's not easy work. That's forensic archaeology meets modern game architecture. Bluepoint had to understand not just what the original game did, but why it worked that way. They had to identify what could be modernized without breaking the core experience. They had to rebuild systems that relied on now-obsolete hardware quirks.

Then came Demon's Souls. The 2020 PS5 remake is one of the generation's most technically impressive launches. It's not just a remake—it's a statement. The game looks objectively incredible while maintaining the exact design of From Software's original 2009 release. That's an insanely difficult balance to strike. Make it too pretty and you lose the identity. Make it too faithful and it feels dated. Bluepoint nailed it.

By the early 2020s, Bluepoint had become something irreplaceable: a studio that understood how to honor legacy while pushing technical boundaries. They were the place you sent your classic games to get reborn.

But here's where the story turns.

The Acquisition: Sony Thinks They've Found Their Secret Weapon (2021)

In June 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Bluepoint Games. At the time, it felt like the obvious next move. Sony had just launched the PS5. The console was proving itself as a graphical powerhouse. Having an in-house studio specialized in remaking and remastering existing IP seemed like strategic genius.

PlayStation's library is one of gaming's greatest treasures. Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy. Games that defined entire eras. If anyone could take these classics and make them shine on PS5, it was Bluepoint.

The acquisition price wasn't disclosed, but the signal was clear: Sony saw this studio as valuable. They saw the remake market as important. They saw Bluepoint as the team that could unlock value from PlayStation's back catalog while building new franchises from scratch.

Looking back, this should have been a golden age for Bluepoint. The studio had technical credibility, creative freedom, and access to one of gaming's most valuable IP libraries. They had job security. They had resources. They had a clear mission.

Except Sony immediately pivoted their mission.

This timeline highlights major events for Bluepoint Games, from its acquisition by Sony in June 2021 to its closure in March 2025. Estimated data.

The Live-Service Disaster: When Corporate Strategy Overtakes Studio Strength

After the acquisition, Bluepoint worked on God of War Ragnarök in partnership with Santa Monica Studio. The game launched in 2022 to massive critical and commercial success. This was a co-development situation, but it proved Bluepoint could deliver AAA-level work at scale.

But something was shifting in the industry. Somewhere around 2020-2021, every major publisher became obsessed with live-service games. Fortnite and Valorant had demonstrated massive revenue potential. PUBG proved battle royale could work at scale. Publishers looked at these games and saw infinite money.

Sony wasn't immune to this fever. Despite having no experience building live-service games, despite not having studios with that expertise, Sony decided to pivot hard into the space. They announced partnerships. They green-lit projects. They began funding live-service titles across their portfolio.

And they tasked Bluepoint—a studio that had never made a live-service game, a studio built on remaking finished classics—with building a live-service God of War title.

Let's be honest: this makes no strategic sense. You don't take your most technically skilled remake studio and ask them to pioneer live-service game design. That's not how studio strengths work. Bluepoint's value came from deep technical knowledge of specific domains. Live-service game design is a completely different skillset. It requires different people, different processes, different philosophies.

But that's exactly what happened.

Bluepoint went to work on this God of War live-service project. For years, the studio pivoted. They hired for different skillsets. They built prototypes. They tested systems. From the outside, there was optimism. This was a God of War game. Sony Santa Monica had proven the franchise could be massively successful. Adding online co-op? That seemed plausible.

Then in 2025, Sony cancelled it.

No public explanation. No dramatic announcement. Just: cancelled. The live-service God of War is not happening. The work Bluepoint put in over years, the direction they'd been pointed toward, the strategic pivot they'd made—all of it was ending.

The Broader Live-Service Collapse: Context for the Shutdown

Here's the thing about Bluepoint's closure: it didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened in the context of Sony's broader live-service disaster.

Before Bluepoint's God of War project was cancelled, Sony shut down Concord. That's a multiplayer hero shooter that cost millions to develop (estimates range from $200-400 million), launched in August 2024, and shut down completely in September 2024. Two weeks. That's how long the game lasted before Sony pulled the plug and issued refunds to everyone who'd bought the game.

Then they closed Firewalk Studios, the developer behind Concord. Around 300 people lost their jobs.

Before that, Sony had its fingers in other live-service disasters. Breakaway, a team-based multiplayer game from Mattel, got cancelled. A live-service title from Bungie, which Sony owns, faced massive challenges.

The pattern was clear: Sony's live-service strategy was a catastrophic failure. The company had tried to enter a market it didn't understand with developers who weren't experienced in the space. The results were billions in losses and thousands of job cuts.

Bluepoint was caught in the blast radius.

Why This Matters: The Death of Specialized Excellence

Here's what bothers me about the Bluepoint closure. It's not just about 70 people losing their jobs (though that's devastating). It's about what it signals about how the industry values specialized expertise.

Bluepoint was exceptional at one thing. Not mediocre at many things. Exceptional at remaking and remastering classic games. That specialization was their strength. They weren't trying to compete with Naughty Dog at narrative-driven storytelling. They weren't competing with From Software at game design innovation. They were the best in their category.

And yet, when Sony's live-service strategy failed, there was no plan for what Bluepoint would do next. The company didn't say, "Okay, we tried live-service. Let's get back to what made Bluepoint valuable in the first place. Let's task them with remaking Crash Bandicoot 2. Let's have them work on a Metal Gear Solid remake. Let's leverage their specialty."

Instead, Bluepoint got shut down.

This suggests Sony either didn't know what it had, or didn't value it enough to reorganize around. And that's a much bigger problem than just one studio closure.

Sony's live-service strategy led to significant financial losses and job cuts across multiple projects. Estimated data shows Concord had the highest financial impact, while Bungie's project resulted in the most job losses.

The Human Cost: 70 Employees and an Industry Pattern

Behind the corporate structure and strategic pivots are actual people. Bluepoint had around 70 employees. Artists who spent years mastering how to rebuild classic game aesthetics. Programmers who understand graphics optimization in ways most engineers don't. Producers who could manage the complex archaeology of remaking existing titles. Game designers who understood how to respect legacy while improving on it.

All of them are now job hunting in a gaming industry that's in the middle of its own crisis. 2024 saw over 13,000 gaming industry layoffs. 2025 started with more shutdowns. The market is brutal right now. Some of Bluepoint's employees will land at other studios. Others will struggle.

For the industry watching this play out, the message is clear and grim: no studio is safe. Not even successful ones. Not even ones owned by major publishers. If corporate strategy shifts and your work doesn't align, you're expendable.

That's having a real effect on the industry's morale.

What Bluepoint's Closure Means for PlayStation's Legacy

Sony's library of classic PlayStation games is still there. Crash, Spyro, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy VII (at least the original), Final Fantasy IX, Jumping Flash, Ape Escape. Hundreds of games that defined PlayStation's identity.

Who remakes these games now?

Sony could task other studios with it. Insomniac Games could do it. Guerrilla Games has the technical chops. But none of them are specialists. When you ask a general-purpose AAA studio to remake a classic, you're pulling resources away from what they're actually known for. You're making it a side project, not a main focus.

Or Sony could partner with external studios. That's an option. But the economics of remake projects aren't always great. Remaking a classic game costs real money, requires serious technical expertise, and has to balance respect for legacy against modernization. The audience is smaller than for new IPs. The financial risk is more predictable but the upside is capped.

Bluepoint was willing to specialize in that space. They'd built expertise in it. They'd developed processes for it. Losing that is losing something genuinely valuable.

The Strategic Misstep: How Publishers Misunderstand Their Own Assets

Let me be blunt: this shutdown reveals a fundamental strategic failure on Sony's part.

Sony acquired Bluepoint because they understood the value of the studio's specialty. But then Sony pivoted the studio toward something they had no expertise in, no track record with, and no real business case for. It's not like Sony thought live-service God of War was a guaranteed hit. The entire industry was seeing live-service failures. Outriders failed. Anthem failed. Avengers failed. The graveyard of dead live-service games is massive.

Yet Sony pushed forward with a live-service game at a studio that had never made one.

When that didn't work out (of course it didn't), Sony shut down the studio rather than realigning it with what it was actually good at. That's not strategic thinking. That's reactive panic dressed up as business decisions.

A competent strategy would have been: acknowledge that Bluepoint's expertise is in remakes. Acknowledge that remakes are valuable to PlayStation's future. Commit to building a pipeline of remake projects. Give Bluepoint a steady stream of classic games to modernize. Build an entire vertical within Sony dedicated to legacy titles.

Instead, Sony killed the studio.

Estimated focus distribution for Bluepoint post-acquisition: 40% on remakes, 30% on new franchises, 20% on technical enhancements, and 10% on other projects. Estimated data.

How This Compares to Other Studio Closures: A Pattern

Bluepoint wasn't the first studio Sony closed recently. In the months surrounding this shutdown, Sony demonstrated a pattern of closing studios that didn't fit its new strategic direction.

Bend Studio, the team behind Days Gone, was largely shut down after the game's sequel was cancelled. The studio exists in a much diminished form now. Guerrilla Cambridge got shut down. Evolution Studios got shut down years ago.

And that's just Sony. Across the industry, studios are disappearing. Microsoft closed Bethesda's Redfall support team after the game flopped. Microsoft also closed ZeniMax Online's Morrowind server after 13 years of live service. EA is constantly trimming studios. Activision has been in perpetual layoff mode.

The pattern suggests publishers are increasingly willing to eliminate entire teams rather than reorient them. It's faster. It's cheaper in the immediate term. It sends a clear message to remaining studios about what happens when you don't deliver.

But it's also incredibly wasteful. Bluepoint wasn't a failing studio. It was a studio that was pointed in the wrong direction.

The Live-Service Lesson: Why Publishers Keep Failing

One of gaming's most frustrating patterns: publishers keep trying to replicate live-service successes despite consistently failing.

Some companies nail it. Bungie built Destiny and Destiny 2 into massive franchises. Activision built Overwatch into a phenomenon (at least before Overwatch 2). Epic Games turned Fortnite into a cultural juggernaut.

But the success rate for new live-service games is abysmal. Industry data suggests less than 20% of new live-service launches achieve profitability. The graveyard includes hundreds of millions or billions in failed investments.

Yet publishers keep doing it. Why?

Partly it's the fantasy of infinite revenue. Live-service games theoretically generate money forever. Battle passes, cosmetics, seasonal content, battle royales. The business model works for games that nail it. Publishers see Fortnite's revenue and think, "We need that."

Partly it's organizational momentum. Once a publisher makes the decision to pursue live-service, there's institutional inertia behind it. Executives have staked their reputation on the decision. They need it to work.

Partly it's that publishers don't actually understand what makes live-service games work. It's not just good game design plus online functionality. It requires a specific cultural understanding of what players want, deep engagement mechanics, constant content production, and a community that actually wants to engage with the game over years.

Not every publisher has those capabilities. Sony clearly doesn't. Neither does EA, if we're being honest. Activision is struggling with it. Only a handful of publishers have figured out how to build live-service games at scale.

But admitting that would require pivoting away from the strategy. And in corporate environments, pivoting is harder than shutting down studios that didn't work out.

What Happens to Bluepoint's Unreleased Work?

One question nobody's answered: what happened to all the work Bluepoint did on the God of War live-service game?

Canonically, it's gone. Cancelled projects typically stay cancelled. The code, the designs, the prototypes, the research—all of it likely gets shelved or deleted. It's not like Sony is going to repurpose it. That's not how the industry works.

So years of work by 70 talented people just evaporates. All that technical knowledge about how to build online systems, all the design documents, all the infrastructure—it just disappears from the PlayStation ecosystem.

That's the hidden cost of strategic missteps. It's not just the jobs lost. It's all the potential value that gets destroyed in the process.

Despite their success, remakes and remasters receive less than 5% of development budgets, highlighting a strategic misalignment in publisher priorities. Estimated data.

The Role of Live-Service Hype in Studio Closures

There's a broader industry trend here worth examining: publishers are using live-service hype to justify pivots that don't make strategic sense.

Bluepoint was good at remakes. That's a legitimate, valuable specialization. But remakes don't generate the kind of exciting quarterly earnings reports that live-service games promise. Remakes are steady revenue. Live-service games are potential moonshots.

Investors love moonshots. Boards love moonshots. Executives love moonshots because successful moonshots make you a genius and unsuccessful ones can be blamed on market conditions or bad luck.

So there's a structural incentive for publishers to pivot their most successful studios toward categories where they have no expertise. There's an incentive to chase the live-service dream even when the data suggests it's not a good bet.

And when those bets fail—when the God of War live-service gets cancelled, when Concord shuts down in weeks—there's no institutional learning. There's just restructuring and layoffs and moving on to the next untested category.

Bluepoint was collateral damage in that system.

How Studios Could Have Survived This: Alternative Paths

Let's imagine an alternative timeline. Sony still acquires Bluepoint. But then Sony says: "You're excellent at remaking games. That's your core mission. Build a long-term roadmap of PlayStation classics we want to modernize. Spyro. Crash. Metal Gear. Work on these as a primary mission. We're giving you resources and stability."

In that timeline, Bluepoint survives. It thrives. PlayStation's library gets refreshed. The studio maintains its specialization and becomes even more valuable.

Or here's another path: Sony says "We're exploring live-service, but we're not going to repurpose you for it. Instead, we're going to hire live-service specialists into the studio to work alongside your remake expertise. You handle the underlying architecture and modernization. They handle the live systems."

That could have worked. Bluepoint's technical excellence combined with live-service specialists could have potentially produced something interesting.

But those aren't the decisions Sony made. Instead, they pivoted the entire studio toward something new, that pivot failed, and they shut it down.

The Bigger Question: What's PlayStation's Future Without Specialized Studios?

Sony owns a lot of studios. They have Insomniac (Spider-Man, Ratchet and Clank). Guerrilla (Horizon). Santa Monica (God of War). Naughty Dog (The Last of Us, Uncharted). Sucker Punch (Ghost of Tsushima). Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo). London Studio. San Diego Studio. Japan Studio (sort of).

Each of these studios has a specialty. Naughty Dog is narrative-focused action games. Guerrilla is technical showcase titles. Insomniac makes tightly designed action games. Sucker Punch makes beautiful open-world samurai games.

Bluepoint was the studio that specialized in remakes and remasters. There's nobody else in Sony's portfolio who does what they did.

With Bluepoint gone, who remakes PlayStation classics?

It's not a theoretical question. PlayStation's library needs constant modernization. Games from the PS2 era are 20+ years old now. They have significant technical debt. They have control schemes that don't work with modern input devices. They have visual styles that look dated. But they also have irreplaceable design and charm.

Without a studio dedicated to that work, those games either stay dated or get heavily reimagined. And heavy reimagining loses what made the originals special.

What The Bluepoint Shutdown Tells Us About Publishing Priorities

Here's what I think this shutdown really reveals: major publishers don't actually value specialized expertise as much as they claim to.

Publishers will talk about how important it is to have studios that excel at specific things. They'll say diversity of studios is crucial to their portfolio. But when push comes to shove, when financial targets get missed or strategic pivots happen, the specialized studios are the most expendable.

A studio like Bluepoint, focused on a specific domain, is easier to shut down than a studio making a blockbuster new IP. There's no fan pressure to keep it alive. There are no sequel expectations. There's no massive community asking for a follow-up.

So when things go wrong—when the live-service bet fails, when the business review says things need to change—Bluepoint is low-hanging fruit.

It's a system that incentivizes conformity and penalizes specialization. It's a system that says: "If you're the best at something specific, we love you, unless we suddenly decide we need you to be good at something else, in which case we'll get rid of you when that doesn't work out."

That's not a sustainable way to manage creative studios.

The Timing Question: Why Announce in December?

One small detail worth thinking about: Sony announced the closure in December 2024, but the closure wouldn't happen until March 2025.

That's a three-month gap. Why not shut down the studio immediately? Why wait until March?

The cynic's answer: tax reasons. Payouts spread across fiscal years. Financial optics that look better when handled this way.

But it also means three months of uncertainty for Bluepoint's employees. Three months of knowing you're going to be laid off but still coming to work. Three months of potential clients and partners knowing the studio is closing and therefore being hesitant to hire or contract.

It's a brutal way to handle it. The most humane approach would have been full severance, immediate closure, and transition support. Instead, employees got a slow fade-out.

How Bluepoint's Legacy Lives On: The Games Remain

Here's the one comforting thing about this situation: Bluepoint's actual output lives on.

Demon's Souls is still there. It's still one of the best-looking PS5 games and still one of the best remakes ever made. Shadow of the Colossus is still there, and it's still technically impressive. The God of War Ragnarök work is still there, delivering some of 2022's best game storytelling and action.

No studio closure can take that away. The work speaks for itself.

Students can study how Bluepoint solved technical problems. Developers can learn from their design decisions. Players can experience the quality of their craftsmanship.

That's something, at least.

The Broader Industry Message: Job Security in Gaming Is Dead

Bluepoint was owned by Sony. It had technical credibility. It had delivered successful games. It wasn't a scrappy startup; it was part of one of gaming's biggest publishers.

And it still got shut down.

For people working in gaming, that's the real message: job security is a myth. You can be excellent at what you do. You can deliver successful products. You can be owned by a major company. And you can still lose your job if corporate strategy shifts.

The layoffs in gaming have been brutal. 2024 saw over 13,000. 2025 is on pace to be similar. Studios that seemed stable are contracting. Publishers are trimming staff at the executive level. It's a bloodbath.

Bluepoint wasn't the first casualty and won't be the last. But it's a particularly stark example because it was successful in what it was designed to do.

FAQ

What was Bluepoint Games known for?

Bluepoint was a PlayStation-focused studio that specialized in remaking and remastering classic video games. Their most notable projects included the 2020 Demon's Souls PS5 remake, the 2018 Shadow of the Colossus PS4 remake, and work on God of War Ragnarök in partnership with Santa Monica Studio. The studio built a reputation for technical excellence and deep respect for source material while modernizing games for current hardware.

Why did Sony shut down Bluepoint Games?

Sony shut down Bluepoint Games following what the company called "a recent business review." According to The Verge, the studio had been tasked with developing a live-service God of War game that was ultimately cancelled in 2025. After this strategic pivot failed, Sony decided to close the studio rather than realign it with its original specialization in remakes and remasters. The closure eliminated around 70 jobs and became official in March 2025.

When did Sony acquire Bluepoint Games?

Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Bluepoint Games in June 2021. At the time, the acquisition seemed strategically sound, as Sony wanted to leverage the studio's expertise in remaking classic PlayStation titles for the new PS5 generation. However, after the acquisition, Sony shifted the studio's focus toward live-service game development, a significant departure from their core specialty.

What happened to Bluepoint's God of War live-service game?

Bluepoint was tasked with developing a live-service multiplayer game set in the God of War universe, reportedly featuring online co-op gameplay. The project was cancelled in 2025 before completion. This cancellation was part of Sony's broader retreat from the live-service market, which also included the shutdown of Concord and closure of Firewalk Studios. The cancellation served as the catalyst for Bluepoint's studio closure.

How many employees did Bluepoint Games have?

Bluepoint was a relatively compact studio with approximately 70 employees. All of these workers were affected by the studio closure announced in December 2024, with the official shutdown occurring in March 2025. The layoffs represented a complete elimination of the studio rather than a reduction in force.

What does Bluepoint's closure mean for PlayStation remake projects?

Bluepoint was the only studio in Sony's portfolio that specialized in remaking classic PlayStation titles. With their closure, the question of who will modernize PlayStation's extensive library of legacy games remains unanswered. Sony may task other in-house studios with remake work, partner with external developers, or deprioritize remakes entirely—signaling a potential shift away from modernizing classic PlayStation games.

How does Bluepoint's shutdown relate to Sony's live-service failures?

Bluepoint was a casualty of Sony's broader struggle with live-service game development. Sony invested heavily in the live-service space starting around 2020-2021, but faced spectacular failures including the shutdown of Concord (a hero shooter that lasted only two weeks after launch) and the closure of Firewalk Studios (the developer behind Concord). These combined failures forced Sony to cancel live-service projects across multiple studios, including Bluepoint's God of War game, ultimately leading to Bluepoint's shutdown.

What were Bluepoint's most successful games?

Bluepoint was responsible for several critically acclaimed remakes: the Demon's Souls PS5 remake (2020), which is considered one of the generation's best-looking games and most faithful remakes; the Shadow of the Colossus PS4 remake (2018), which earned widespread praise for maintaining the original's design while modernizing its technical presentation; and co-development work on God of War Ragnarök (2022). These projects established Bluepoint as the industry's leading studio for high-quality video game remakes.

Conclusion: A Studio Lost to Strategic Confusion

Bluepoint wasn't shut down because it failed. It was shut down because its parent company failed to understand what it had.

Sony acquired a studio that was excellent at a specific, valuable thing: remaking and remastering classic games with technical precision and creative respect. Instead of doubling down on that expertise, Sony pivoted the studio toward live-service game development, a completely different discipline where Bluepoint had no experience.

When that pivot didn't work—because of course it didn't, live-service games are hard and require specific expertise—Sony didn't reassess. Sony didn't say, "Let's get Bluepoint back to what they're good at." Instead, Sony shut the studio down.

This story matters because it reveals something ugly about how major publishers manage their creative assets. Studios are expendable. Specialization is risky. Strategic pivots are forced without regard for what studios actually excel at. And when those pivots fail, the studio pays the price.

For the 70 people who worked at Bluepoint, this is a personal tragedy. For the gaming industry watching from the sidelines, it's a cautionary tale.

For PlayStation, it's the loss of something genuinely unique. A studio that knew how to bridge past and future, that could take a game from 1999 and make it relevant in 2020, that had solved problems most other studios never think about.

That expertise is gone now. And it's not clear when—or if—it will be replaced.

The games Bluepoint made will outlive the studio. Demon's Souls will still be beautiful. Shadow of the Colossus will still be masterful. God of War Ragnarök will still be tremendous.

But there won't be another Bluepoint. Not immediately. Maybe not ever in the same form.

And that's what we've lost in this shutdown: not just jobs, but institutional knowledge. Not just a studio, but an approach to gaming that was becoming increasingly rare in an industry obsessed with massive new IPs and unproven business models.

Bluepoint was proof that there was value in specialization, in mastery of a specific domain, in deep respect for source material. That proof is now gone.

Let's hope someone learns from it.

Key Takeaways

• Bluepoint Games specialized in remaking and remastering classic PlayStation titles with technical excellence before being acquired by Sony in 2021
• Sony pivoted the studio toward live-service game development, forcing it away from its core specialization into unfamiliar territory
• The God of War live-service project was cancelled in 2025 after years of development, leading directly to the studio's closure and 70 job losses
• Sony's broader live-service strategy collapsed with Concord shutting down weeks after launch and Firewalk Studios closing entirely
• The shutdown reveals publishers often eliminate specialized studios rather than realigning them with their original expertise when strategies fail
• Gaming industry layoffs exceeded 13,000 in 2024, making Bluepoint part of a systemic crisis affecting job security across the entire sector

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