Adam Ryan

Bluepoint Games FINAL REPORT: From Bloodborne Remake Potential to Shuttered. **I spoke to 4 Bluepoint employees and this is THEIR STORY on timeline, dates, and codenames for projects: 🔵End of 2020- Bluepoint Ships Demon's Souls and talks begin with Sony Acquisition and working on more original projects: - Sony did not think the remakes/ remasters made enough money, and some people within BP and Sony wanted to branch out. - All heard that Shadow of The Colossus remake lost money, but it was assumed it would, but Yoshida wanted to preserve the game. - Shadow of The colossus remake biggest criticism was the new face on the main character. However, Fumito Ueda wanted it to look that way and designed it.  - There were conversations about doing add-on content to the remakes to help with funding into original content, and grow design department.  - It was assumed in the studio that BP would be remaking Bloodborne after Demon's Souls.  - Bluepoint had a design department of 1-2 people, but was not sufficient for a full project. 🔴2021 - Quote "In early 2021 after Demon Souls, studio staff assumed they would work on Bloodborne, and started to prepare to, however they did not get the greenlight due to internal politics of Bloodborne involving a fragile relationship with FromSoft, Sony, and the original IP." SOURCES DO NOT THINK BLOODBORNE REMAKE WILL EVER BE MADE DUE TO POLITICS! - Bloodborne was pulled from the table and BP had no project.  - BP was assigned to help with Ragnarök support due to SMS needing some help, and a combo of other factors. - Jim Ryan was pushing live service hard and Sony had a desire to explore making God of War into an Assassin's Creed style franchise.  - Franchise would explore different mythologies and characters.  - BP was NOT allowed to make a game with Kratos as SMS/ Sony did not trust BP with that and it would be too expensive.  - September 30th, 2021.. BluePoint is bought by Sony.  - Bp is acquired and tasked with coming up with an original project in the God of War universe. The catch was they needed to stretch the content, but BP employees did not know at the time it was a live service game.  - They stated "A gamble was made by convincing Sony to buy us instead of us looking for funding elsewhere."  - After the acquisition there was a culture change within Bluepoint. 🔵2022 - Prototyping begins for "Demon Souls meets God of War" also called CP13. - BP staff was not told initially that the game was a live service game.  - BP still had a minimal design team.  - BP did not have a Game Director for this project, was promised one on loan from SMS (Santa Monica Studio) and a couple designers once Ragnarök was shipped. 🔴End of 2022 - SMS Game Director and designers joined the team. - A lot of time was spent prototyping but the mesh of SMS/ BP did not go well as they were not familiar with BP's engine, fully remote work due to covid, and hiring freezes at sony.  - Very soon after SMS folks arrived, BP staff learned the game they were having to make was a live service game and they needed to work with what they had.  - Internal issues began to arise, and the ones on board with live service were the head shed at SMS, Sony, and BP.  - It was unclear whether BP leadership believed in the project, or just doing their best to salvage morale.  - About 75% of staff employees, according to sources, were against this move and pushed back against making a live service.  - After deadlines were not hit, internal strife from employees, the project was canceled by Sony in early 2025. 🔵2025 Bluepoint begins pitching projects to Sony. - They pitched Jak and Daxter remake, resistance remake, shadow of colossus remaster (bringing game to PS5, updating graphics, adding 4-6 new bosses, with several pulled from the original ps2 content. - Bloodborne Remake was again pitched. A small portion of the team worked on it for 2-3 months, but Sony pulled the plug. (It was never officially greenlit, but they were deep in negotiations and BP thought they would make it). 2 new IP's, and worked on some small pitches all under CP-13 folder, and then CodeName "Black Fang" CP-14 was pitched.  - CodeName "Black Fang" was a ghost of Tsushima spinoff that Sony liked.  - Sony gave Bluepoint 5-6 months to prototype it (until end of March 2026) to prove they could make it.  - Employees felt it was going okay even though it was never officially greenlit and were on track to hit deadline.  - Employees found out on February 19th that they were being shut down and project Black Fang is canceled. Studio last day is March 2nd, 2026. It is worth noting that Bluepoint did use contractors, however majority of the people stayed at the studio from Shadow until shuttering. About 40 employees have been there the entire time, with the rest being contractors. This obviously has fluctuated with retirements, deaths, and turnovers. According to all sources, people stayed at Bluepoint and wanted to continue to stay there! A sad story to such a wonderful group of talented artists!

Bloomberg: PlayStation shutting down Bluepoint Games