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Sony is shutting down Dark Outlaw Games, a first-party game studio led by former Call of Duty producer Jason Blundell, Bloomberg<\/em>‘s Jason Schreier reports. Before leading Dark Outlaw Games, Blundell was the head of Deviation Games, which was an independent studio, but also happened to be developing a PlayStation game before it shut down, Schreier says.<\/p>\n Dark Outlaw Games had yet to announce what it was working on, but considering Blundell’s experience with the Call of Duty franchise, it seems likely the studio was developing a multiplayer project for PlayStation. Blundell was a programmer and producer at Activision before making the jump to Treyarch to work on Call of Duty 3<\/em>, and he contributed to multiple Call of Duty: Black Ops games after that, including serving as the director for the campaign and Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops III<\/em> and the career and Zombies modes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4<\/em>.<\/p>\n Engadget has contacted Sony for more information about the fate of Dark Outlaw Games. We’ll update this article if we hear back.<\/p>\n The studio’s shutdown is being paired with cuts to staff at PlayStation focused on mobile development, according to Schreier. Sony has made a habit of laying off staff and shutting down studios in the last year, seemingly as a way to retreat from an earlier investment in online, live-service multiplayer games. The company shut down Bluepoint Games in February following attempts to get a live-service God of War game off the ground. Sony also closed Firewalk Studios after the spectacular failure of multiplayer shooter Concord<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n That leaves Sony with at least two Horizon Zero Dawn spin-offs, a co-op game from original developer Guerilla Games and a MMO from developer NCSoft; Fairgame$<\/em>, which is still in active development despite the departure of Haven Studios head Jade Raymond; Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2;<\/em> Bungie’s Destiny 2 <\/em>and Marathon<\/em>; and if you really want to stretch, Gran Turismo 7<\/em>. Sony clearly hasn’t given up on producing online multiplayer games, but it’s not hard to characterize its attempt to expand into the space as a disaster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n