Industry observers note that before leading Dark Outlaw Releases, Blundell was the head of Deviation Releases, which was an independent developer, but also happened to be developing a PlayStation experience before it shut down, Schreier says. Sony is shutting down Dark Outlaw Releases, a first-party experience developer led by former Call of Duty producer Jason Blundell, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports.
As part of the ongoing story, blundell was a programmer and producer at Activision before making the jump to Treyarch to work on Call of Duty 3, and he contributed to multiple Call of Duty: Black Ops titles after that, including serving as the director for the campaign and Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops III and the career and Zombies modes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Dark Outlaw Releases had yet to unveil what it was working on, but considering Blundell's experience with the Call of Duty franchise, it seems likely the developer was developing a multiplayer project for PlayStation.
In a fresh development, we'll patch this article if we hear back. Engadget has contacted Sony for more information about the fate of Dark Outlaw Releases.
In a fresh development, sony has made a habit of laying off staff and shutting down game studios in the last year, seemingly as a way to retreat from an earlier investment in online, live-service multiplayer titles. The publisher shut down Bluepoint Releases in February following attempts to get a live-service God of War experience off the ground. Sony also closed Firewalk Developers after the spectacular failure of multiplayer shooter Concord in October 2024. And a year before that, Naughty Dog officially abandoned work on a standalone multiplayer version of The Last of Us in December 2023. The developer's shutdown is being paired with cuts to staff at PlayStation focused on mobile development, according to Schreier.
In a fresh development, sony clearly hasn't given up on producing online multiplayer titles, but it's not hard to characterize its attempt to expand into the space as a disaster. That leaves Sony with at least two Horizon Zero Dawn spin-offs, a co-op experience from original developer Guerilla Releases and a MMO from developer NCSoft; Fairgame$, which is still in active development despite the departure of Haven Developers head Jade Raymond; Arrowhead Title Developers' Helldivers 2; Bungie's Destiny 2 and Marathon; and if you really want to stretch, Gran Turismo 7.