Out of all the first-party developers at PlayStation,Bend Studiois arguably the one company that doesn’t get as much recognition as it deserves. The Oregon-based firm has been around for 32 years, even longer than the PlayStation brand itself, and yet its portfolio of games isn’t really regarded that highly compared to studios like Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, and Insomniac.Bend Studiooriginally got its start making puzzle video games for the Apple Newton, but during the PS1 generation, it branched out and worked on other projects, such as theSyphon Filterseries. Nowadays, the company is better known for developing the 2019 zombie-slaying gameDays Gone, which was divisive among critics but received positively by fans.
If recent rumors are to be believed,Bend Studio’s next gameis going to be a military multiplayer third-person shooter that potentially has GAAS elements. This unannounced title is apparently going to be a part of a new intellectual property, and won’t be a follow-up toSyphon Filter,SOCOM, or any of PlayStation’s other legacy series. The decision to work on a new IP instead of an established franchise afterDays Gonemay not have always been Bend Studio’s intention, however. The company was reportedly working on anUnchartedgame at one time, which might not be in development anymore.
A New Uncharted Game Was Reportedly in Development at Bend Studio
Bend Studio Was Working on New Uncharted and Days Gone Games, But Both Were Scrapped
Back in April 2021, rumors were swirling around thata sequel toDays Gonehad internally been shelveddue to the poor critical reception and strenuous development cycle of its predecessor. At the time, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that one of the teams at Bend Studio that was working onDays Gone 2had shifted its focus to developing a newUnchartedgame instead. Although Schreier didn’t report on any specifics about this game, he did reveal that it was still in the planning stage.
Schreier’s claims were further corroborated by leaked documents fromthe 2023 Insomniac hack, which revealed that Bend Studio was, at one point, planning to pursue aDays Gonesequel and anUnchartedgame. These particular documents were from 2020, and even though four years have passed since then, this mysteriousUnchartedproject has yet to be announced. According to Schreier, this is because it was likely canceled. Since many of the staff at Bend Studio were more interested in creating a new IP instead of a follow-up toUncharted, the game never saw the light of day.
Bend Studio Has Experience With the Uncharted Franchise
IfBend Studio had created a newUnchartedgame, it wouldn’t have been the companies' first time working on the famous action-adventure franchise. The developer has collaborated with fellow Sony subsidiary Naughty Dog on several occasions and created variousUnchartedspin-offs over the years, such asUncharted: Golden Abyss,Uncharted: Fight for Fortune, andUncharted: Drake’s Trail. It’s typically uncommon for Sony to hand off its tentpole first-party IPs to other developers under the PlayStation umbrella, but Bend Studio was an exception.
Sony May Be Willing to Let Other Studios Work On their Legacy Franchises In the Future
Perhaps it would benefit Sony to allow more of its internal developers to work on the franchises created by their sister studios. It’d be great, for example, if Insomniac was able to work on a new mainlineInfamousgame, or if Polyphony Digital was given permission to work on a sixth entry in theMotorStormseries.
It’s hard to say if hypothetical games like these will ever come to fruition, or if the developers under Sony are even interested in working on franchises they didn’t create. With that said, the fact that Sony is even willing to let a company like Bend Studio work on a flagship Naughty Dog IP shows that the firm is still open to the idea of bringing back franchises without their original creators at the helm. That, at the very least, may give some fans hope thatSony will consider reviving its dormant IPsin the same way that it was supposedly going to do forUncharted.
