Sony Terminates Bluepoint Games Operations After Unsuccessful Development Efforts
Sony terminated Bluepoint Games operations after five years which the studio dedicated to unsuccessful development efforts. The Austin branch of Bluepoint Games reached its closure in February 2026 when Sony Group Corp. terminated its business activities at the studio which specialized in creating major remake projects such as Demon’s Souls. The studio closure resulted in 70 employees losing their jobs which ended operations at a studio that had served as a core component of PlayStation Studios. The studio failed to deliver any completed projects to Sony after the 2021 acquisition despite Sony's initial recognition of the team's technical skills and artistic abilities.
The studio declined because its management decided to implement a total strategic transformation. Sony established "live service" games as their main priority after they acquired the company because these games enable continuous revenue generation. Bluepoint received the assignment to create a live service game based on the God of War franchise despite the studio's reputation for producing engineering and artistic restoration work.
The project centers on Atreus who explores the Hades underworld during cooperative gameplay according to internal documents. The studio encountered difficulties when trying to create their first original live service game after completing technical remakes. Staff members worked to develop traditional single player projects which focused on gameplay mechanics from Demon’s Souls. Sony officially canceled the project after multiple years of delayed development progress which reached its final point in January 2025.
After canceling the God of War project Bluepoint sought to return to its core strengths. The studio proposed to remake Bloodborne which fans have been requesting since the game released in 2015. The Bloodborne remake project had positive financial projections but development work never commenced.
The primary barriers to the project emerged from Hidetaka Miyazaki who served as president of FromSoftware. Sony chose to honor Miyazaki's request that no studio except his own team who required authorization to build a Bloodborne remake should take control of the project despite owning the intellectual property rights to the game. Bluepoint's subsequent pitches to Sony which included an updated version of Shadow of the Colossus and a Ghost of Tsushima spinoff were both denied by Sony leadership.
The breaking point of the situation happened in early February 2026. The Austin studio experienced rising tensions when Sony announced its plan to develop a full remake of the original God of War trilogy using internal resources without involving Bluepoint. Sony declared the studio would close one week later because they could not locate any projects or partnerships which would leverage Bluepoint's unique technical expertise for future PlayStation Studios ventures.
The closure brings an understated conclusion to a group which created the PlayStation 5's first launch game. The 2020 Demon’s Souls remake achieved over 1.4 million sales and set a standard for modern hardware technical performance. The studio has dissolved into nonexistence but former engineers and artists maintain their specialized skills through their active industry presence as they search for new employment both within and outside PlayStation.
