Really feels like Sony took way more risks under Kaz Hirai and Ken Kutaragi compared to Andrew House. I've never seen them so trigger happy in laying off staff than these last few years. Evolution Studio's, SSM, San Diego Studio, Superbot, Liverpool, Sony London, Guerilla Cambridge, Zipper, and it keeps climbing.
Well, of course they're more trigger-happy now versus then. The gaming market has changed to become unrecognizable over that time.
It was too close to Horizon obviously. In fact I bet some of the ideas went into horizon anyway.
Maybe. That didn't stop them from producing both Last of Us 2 and Days Gone, though. If there was room for both, and if both were market-ready, I think they'd stay behind both. But it probably didn't make the SSM team any less nervous that their project would survive once they started hitting on problems.
I refuse to believe a talented team like Santa Monica would've created a total stinker right after making God of War 3.
Well, games don't get cancelled only because they're bad. Sometimes, the project just isn't working. Not enough focus, not the design style that's jiving with the current market, not the right gameplay balance, not the best flow in combat, not enough or too much territory for the play concept at hand, not the best atmosphere or shared interest level in the office, not the right budget for the scale of the project, not enough fun...
Some fundamental choices in a project sometimes make it incredibly difficult to make a change halfway through production, and sometimes even though you have all these great ingredients, you can't get a meal out of it.
A good study on this topic is Insomniac's breakdown of its "
I:5 - Girl With A Stick" project. The studio is full of talent, had tons of experience, had a head start on building its next-gen tech, and had some guides like Zelda and Tomb Raider and 90s RPGs, and yet the project never gelled. They eventually faced up to the horror that the project could not be salvaged, dug deep, and switched to a different project: Ratchet & Clank.