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[Topher]

Just yesterday, we reported on Sony’s unintended reveal that Bend Studio (Days Gone) is working on a “multi-genre/evolving” project. While there’s no details about that in-development game that’s known, it seems Sony is spending quite a hefty sum in creating it.

At least that’s according to former Bend Studio developer and Days Gone director Jeff Ross. Over on Twitter, Ross mentioned that Sony has already spent over quarter of a billion dollars ($250 million) in the unannounced project.

In addition to that, Ross mentioned that while Days Gone didn’t sell as well as Ghost of Tsushima, it did do better than Death Stranding, a game which already has a sequel in development.




This revelation of Bend Studio’s purported spending stemmed from Ross claiming PlayStation co-CEO Hermen Hulst “hated” the Days Gone franchise.




Note that the image above was fan made and not something whipped up by Sony. Ross himself admitted to posting it a little bit too hastily as well given people might deem it as an official Sony image.

According to Ross, Hermen Hulst’s “bias” was purely because of PlayStation’s portfolio given they already have a zombie game in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, why would they need a lesser-performing title.







While I have no doubt Ross knows quite a number of people at his former studio at Bend, the $250-million figure is still something not publicly revealed or confirmed by Sony, and as such, shouldn’t be taken as an official development budget.

The former Days Gone director hasn’t been shy in voicing his opinion on his love for Days Gone. Chances for a sequel are next to impossible especially after Shawn Layden’s departure at PlayStation according to Ross.

Days Gone Director Claims Bend Studio's Project Costs Over $250 Million; Says PlayStation Co-CEO Doesn't Want 2 Zombies Games in Portfolio

Days Gone director claims Sony has already poured in at least a $250M in Bend's project; says Days Gone sold more than Death Stranding.

mp1st.com

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I looked but didn't see this posted. Sorry if I missed it.

 

[TransTrender]

I think this has been posted.

 

[ssringo]

According to Ross, Hermen Hulst’s “bias” was purely because of PlayStation’s portfolio given they already have a zombie game in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, why would they need a lesser-performing title.

This is an infuriating sentence to read as someone that hasn't enjoyed a single thing Naughty Dog has ever created.

 

[nial]

Yet SIE still released Rise of the Ronin almost 4 years after Ghost of Tsushima.
I felt for the man in 2021, now he's clearly STILL butthurt about it to the point of obviously making shit up, LOL at the poster thing.

 

[ReBurn]

He seems really bitter.

 

[Topher]

He seems really bitter.

My thoughts as well

 

[Saber]

I though this was already know. Which is a shame, I would rather stick with Days Gone.

 

[Gaiff]

Never seen so much crying over such a mediocre game.

 

[Singular7]

Never seen so much crying over such a mediocre game.

Far from mediocre. On PC hardcore mode with a couple mods it's almost as good as RDR2. Not joking!

Great world, advancement, characters, acting and combat.

One of my favorite and most unexpectedly great games.

 

[TGO]

"Portfolio clashes"
I call bullshit, they wouldn't have greenlit it overwise unless someone didn't want another zombie title after the fact.
And you can guess who that probably was.

 

[ZehDon]

Dude's starting to read like Cliffy B.

I get that it sucks when you have a game that was pretty close to being terrific, which Days Gone was, that just needed a sequel to really achieve it's full potential - only be to be denied that chance. But this is the reality of the entertainment business. Lots of egos, lots of politics. You gotta dust yourself off and keep going or it'll eat your soul if you let it.

 

[Kilau]

He needs to keep Death Stranding out his fucking mouth!

It was GOTY by award total and hardly cost anything to make being developed by a ONE man team.

 

[GymWolf]

Deacon was too much of a non-pussy dude with an actual libido for helmet and modern sony.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Yet SIE still released Rise of the Ronin almost 4 years after Ghost of Tsushima.
I felt for the man in 2021, now he's clearly STILL butthurt about it to the point of obviously making shit up, LOL at the poster thing.

I don’t blame him being butthurt. Spend years working on a game that you are heavily passionate about, see it sell well, but denied a sequel and have the studio undergo changes by idiotic management at Sony.

 

[March Climber]

Far from mediocre. On PC hardcore mode with a couple mods it's almost as good as RDR2. Not joking!

Which mods?

 

[nial]

I don’t blame him being butthurt.

I do when he's posting stupid shit on Twitter, and don't get me started on when he's trying to drag Death Stranding into the conversation.

 

[Dick Jones]

I have a few issues with this. A few years ago Ross and Garvan were on David Jaffe's show and claimed it was one of the higher ups in Bend that denied Bend the chance to pitch to Sony. Sony never saw a Days Gone 2 pitch. Now, it's Herman never liked the IP. Keep the story consistent.

 

[March Climber]

I do when he's posting stupid shit on Twitter, and don't get me started on when he's trying to drag Death Stranding into the conversation.

I hope Kojima posts this gif:

 

[existensmaximum]

Never seen so much crying over such a mediocre game.

It's the absolute definition of mediocre on every sense of the word. I'm shocked how much love the game gets on this forum.

 

[March Climber]

It's the absolute definition of mediocre on every sense of the word. I'm shocked how much love the game gets on this forum.

I worry about this when I finally get to playing it, because some people here also say great things about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and from me recently playing over 60 hours of it, I can confidently say that game was mediocre too. I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did.

 

[Muddy]

Yet SIE still released Rise of the Ronin almost 4 years after Ghost of Tsushima.
I felt for the man in 2021, now he's clearly STILL butthurt about it to the point of obviously making shit up, LOL at the poster thing.

Rise of the Ronin isn’t a Sony IP though.

I’m surprised Sony even gave the go ahead to Days Gone.

A poor mans TLOU is all it ever was.

 

[tmlDan]

Never seen so much crying over such a mediocre game.

legit, i feel like people like it because it goes against the norm (anti-woke or w/e), but the story telling, horrible cuts in cutscenes and writing, decent combat/gameplay but it just doesn't feel like a PS first party game. It feels oddly disjointed, not bad, but mediocre.

 

[dorkimoe]

Game did deserve a sequel, actually like seeing them defend their game.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

Bought Days Gone at launch. Tried like 4 times to get in to it, I just couldn't. It just didn't hold my attention.

 

[nial]

Rise of the Ronin isn’t a Sony IP though.

They didn't have to fund, produce and publish it, and here we are.

 

[existensmaximum]

I worry about this when I finally get to playing it, because some people here also say great things about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and from me recently playing over 60 hours of it, I can confidently say that game was mediocre too. I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did.

Yeah that happens sometimes. For me, Dragon's Dogma 2 was like that - I'm starting to wonder if I even played the same game as people here did. I'd even say it's below mediocre. There are just so many flaws and hardly any redeeming qualities at all for me personally.

So after 40 hours or so I gave up and just sold it.

 

[Ozriel]

You’d have to be extrenely gullible to believe that $250 million claim.

He says ‘at least $250 million’, and we know the game isn’t coming out this year. throw in (at least) an additional year of development and marketing and you’re looking at a project that’s around $350m at the minimum. That’s not a budget anyone is giving Bend.

This reads like a disgruntled ex-employee dropping hot takes

 

[mckmas8808]

This is an infuriating sentence to read as someone that hasn't enjoyed a single thing Naughty Dog has ever created.

That says alot more about you than Sony though.

 

[Three]

Rise of the Ronin isn’t a Sony IP though.

I’m surprised Sony even gave the go ahead to Days Gone.

A poor mans TLOU is all it ever was.

It started out as a tech demo of "look how many zombies we have on screen" and that was pretty impressive at the time. It wanted to do open world TLOU.

 

[Hudo]

While I can understand why the guy is salty, Twitter is not the place to air dirty laundry. All of the supposed "professionals" behaving like little bitches on Twitter comes off as extremely unprofessional. And many, many game devs suffer from the same kind "let's take it to Twitter"-syndrome.
Devs (or actually any sane person) should not have a Twitter account and should ignore this garbage bin of humanity completely.

Let Twitter be exclusively the for the mentally ill to offend each other and complain about being offended.

 

[kiphalfton]

Jeff Ross, please kindly STFU.

Lots of people hate past jobs, and yet manage to NOT spam social media about it years later.

 

[GHG]

He seems really bitter.

I think he's within his rights to be.

That kind of behaviour is really out of character for Sony in terms of their handling of a new IP, especially one that sold as well as Days Gone and was received by customers as well as it was.

If you look back at the PS3 era you can point towards uncharted, motorstorm, resistance and infamous as games where the first games in their respective series didn't set the world alight and all had their own set of issues, but Sony gave them the time and space to develop though their growing pains and become the franchises that they did. Uncharted especially so.

It's all very ironic coming from Herman considering the state of the original Killzone and then the shit Killzone 2 went through with the pre-rendered trailer shenanigans. But Sony stood by them and gave them the support to develop what they did which has enabled Guerrilla to become what they are today (and Herman to have the career he's had on a personal level).

It's like the current set of upper management have forgotten what it takes to build and develop new IP, it's a complete clash with what Sony have traditionally stood for from a first party perspective.

I'd say both Days Gone and Driveclub from last gen are examples of new IP that got completely shafted, these are two types of game that they would have had room for in their portfolio today, especially given their first party release cadence this generation so far.

 

[Silver Wattle]

You’d have to be extrenely gullible to believe that $250 million claim.

He says ‘at least $250 million’, and we know the game isn’t coming out this year. throw in (at least) an additional year of development and marketing and you’re looking at a project that’s around $350m at the minimum. That’s not a budget anyone is giving Bend.

This reads like a disgruntled ex-employee dropping hot takes

I'd take his estimate over whatever some neogaffer can come up with.

 

[Moses85]

He has Balls of Steel

Did better than DS? This is blasphemy on God Hideo

 

[Bartski]

 

[bitbydeath]

Far from mediocre. On PC hardcore mode with a couple mods it's almost as good as RDR2. Not joking!

Great world, advancement, characters, acting and combat.

One of my favorite and most unexpectedly great games.

It’s better than RDR2 even without mods.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

This is an infuriating sentence to read as someone that hasn't enjoyed a single thing Naughty Dog has ever created.

Having two of your studios make zombie games doesn't make sense.

Also, DG was meh. Hulst at least thinks clearly.

 

[AncientOrigin]

Herman Hulst is an idiot and has no clue about Games Especially good games.We see in which conditions Sony games are right now games gets canceled to many Gaas trash good games like TLOU online gets canceled or put on hold.If I had his job I would build 10 small studios around the world most in Japan 5-30 people studios who make indi-AA games for 20-30 dolar range.I would tell them to make games like herzog zwei Dune sim city Probotector Ultima tower defense games final fantasy tactics typ games they would be dirt cheap but will bring in lots of money they can help finance the big Titels and over the year there would be constant first party games.This man has no clues about anything.

 

[GHG]

Having two of your studios make zombie games doesn't make sense.

Also, DG was meh. Hulst at least thinks clearly.

There are plenty of clashes within their portfolio.

And to make matters worse, it doesn't look like the last of us part 3 is even a reality at the moment, not at least for this generation anyway.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

There are plenty of clashes within their portfolio.

And to make matters worse, it doesn't look like the last of us part 3 is even a reality at the moment, not at least for this generation anyway.

Either way, DG was meh.

Tried it twice, quit within 30 minutes twice. Controls were shit, graphics were okay.

A sequel would be a waste of money. Better to try something else and diversify.

Also, what clashes? Can't think of any.

 

[GymWolf]

Edit

 

[Hypereides]

Just yesterday, we reported on Sony’s unintended reveal that Bend Studio (Days Gone) is working on a “multi-genre/evolving” project. While there’s no details about that in-development game that’s known, it seems Sony is spending quite a hefty sum in creating it.

At least that’s according to former Bend Studio developer and Days Gone director Jeff Ross. Over on Twitter, Ross mentioned that Sony has already spent over quarter of a billion dollars ($250 million) in the unannounced project.

In addition to that, Ross mentioned that while Days Gone didn’t sell as well as Ghost of Tsushima, it did do better than Death Stranding, a game which already has a sequel in development.



(...)

Its kinda hilarious to me that Sony rejected a Days gone sequel proposal when it performed better than Death stranding. Hulst must really be infatuated by Kojima unless they signed some multiple games agreement.

 

[Calverz]

Shit was boring as fuck. I dropped it after an hour or two. Sony already have other open world games equally boring. Horizon, got and death stranding. That got the chop because the sjw community attacked it.

 

[Physiognomonics]

"Portfolio clashes"
I call bullshit, they wouldn't have greenlit it overwise unless someone didn't want another zombie title after the fact.
And you can guess who that probably was.

Yes I agree. Days gone wasn't woke enough but most importantly was too much male testosterone stuff which was against the latest trends at Playstation's. Just look at the last bland, politically correct and soon DOA, Concord, Helmust green lit.

 

[nemiroff]

While the game had plenty of annoying aspects, sticking with it revealed a diamond in the rough. A sequel could easily have the potential to become one of Sony's best. No wonder why he's bitter.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

It's the absolute definition of mediocre on every sense of the word. I'm shocked how much love the game gets on this forum.

You're living in a GAF bubble if you honestly think only people on this forum care about this game/IP. I mean I get that the game is not for everyone, but it's pretty clear that an open-world zombie game that incorporate various themes from popular shows like The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy would do well with a large amount of people.

If people didn't feel strongly about this game this petition wouldn't even get a fraction of the signatures it's gotten so far.

 

[Nemesisuuu]

So, it is zombies in TLOU after all.

/jk

 

[Muddy]

They didn't have to fund, produce and publish it, and here we are.

That had everything to do with filling up this barren year for PS5 first party games.

Also it definitely wasn’t 150 million that Bend were asking for.

 

[Muddy]

It started out as a tech demo of "look how many zombies we have on screen" and that was pretty impressive at the time. It wanted to do open world TLOU.

That was the issue.

Days Gone looked generic and had no identity of its own.

Instead of clickers, bloaters, runners in TLOU you had Swarmers, Breakers and Screamers.

Days Gone would have been better being a TLOU spinoff or even an online multiplayer survival game in the TLOU universe.

 

[existensmaximum]

You're living in a GAF bubble if you honestly think only people on this forum care about this game/IP. I mean I get that the game is not for everyone, but it's pretty clear that an open-world zombie game that incorporate various themes from popular shows like The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy would do well with a large amount of people.

If people didn't feel strongly about this game this petition wouldn't even get a fraction of the signatures it's gotten so far.

I'm shocked how much love this game gets *on this forum and elsewhere. OK?