Jeff Ross implied with a tweet towards Jason Sherierier that JS was able to speak much more freely than he was about the situation. I was watching the Jaffe stream where he said it, the tweet was after the stream.
Sure, Jeff Ross is under NDA so he can't leak or comment unnanounced games, something Jason does without getting consequences.
Exactly, Jason's source could be far away on the other side of the office or in another part of the building,
Maybe it's just the janitor
The point is that Jason doesn't have to lie, he believes his source enough, the source could believe that Days Gone 2 got cancelled, but that person may not have a clue what happened to the game, they just got second hand info or where removed from working on the game because their version sucked in Sony's eyes.
That source gave information for 2019, Jeff talks about Days Gone 2 still being in development when he left in 2020, so maybe the game went back into the incubation phase and logically it's going to take more time, so perhaps Jeff along with John because they wouldn't be needed for a while.
Jeff seems pretty happy with his time at the Studio, I don't think John Garvin has badmouthed Sony about leaving either, seems pretty happy from what I've read, unless I missed any comments John Garvin has given anywhere.
Jeff really didn't need to say anything, but he's refuted Jason's Source's statements, outright, being the game's Director he would know more.
There is another theory where both Jason and Jeff versions would match, if cronologically happened this:
-Bend has two big gamedev tracks: one plans to do DG2 in the next few years and the other one a new IP
-After DG1 two small teams work on preproduction and pitching these projects to the HQ
-Until they get approved, the majority of the people of these two Bends tracks help ND with some of their projects (like the multiplayer game and the next Uncharted) to don't be without working until these two pitches get greenlighted
-The first DG2 pitch isn't greenlighted, they continue reworking it trying to greenlight it later
-The new IP gets greenlighted, so that Bend track stops helping ND with the Uncharted game and moves to the new IP
-------------------------------------Jason's info gets until this point--------------------------------------------------------------
-2nd DG2 pitch gets approved, or already was approved but the project was put on hold until they complete all the work they had to do helping ND with the multiplayer game, or until they grew enough to have two complete tracks, or they are waiting for UE5 to be released and meanwhile they continue helping ND
I don't think heads of studio leaving means things are going well. In time we'll find out whether Days Gone exists and who was right.
There are almost 1700 people included in the Days Gone credits. I'm pretty sure they can continue doing a great job without a couple of studio heads. Remember Sony also had all these goty winners and goty nominated games in the recent years, plus several big seller games, and has gaming history record in revenue. So they have enough money to hire anyone if needed.
Jeff mentioned that, unlike Jason said in the article, he left due to personal reasons and debunked that his reasons for leaving were:
-The state of a project (as it would be the cancelation of DG2, he couldn't mention leaked/unannounced projects, or in the case they would have cancelled it, to confirm that DG2 was cancelled)
-His or Bend's their relationship with ND (mentioned ND and Bend had a great relationship and collaborations during decades, and mentioned to be a big fan of TLOU, TLOU2 and Druckmann)
-His or Bend's relationship with PlayStation Studios/SCEA/PlayStation bosses (had good words for Hermen Hulst, Jim Ryan, Yoshida, Shawn, Scott...), mentioned they always have been very supportive, patient and that they were ok with DG1 results
Jeff said he left because he's 50 years old and wants to release at least a couple of games before retiring, and because in addition to that, he personally feels more confortable to work with the workflow of smaller AA-sized project, because it's the one he's used to after using it during decades. He feels more comfortable in this size of games than in the workflow required for big AAA games.
He also mentioned that there are people in Bend perfectly capable to replace him.
True but not everything would be under NDA like his work experience and his personal feelings about the company. I'm pretty sure he would love to talk more about the games that they were working on but the NDA prevents him from doing that. However the NDA wouldn't force him to say only positive things when he left the company. He could certainly say he disliked the working conditions if it really bothered him that much.
Yep, NDA basically prevents you to reveal secret stuff like leaking or confirming the existence o unannounced games, or confirming a rumor that certain project has been cancelled, or other sensitive non-public data like how well did sell a game. So he didn't directly mentioned these things.
It he would have desired it, it would have been ok to respectfully mention he didn't agree with certain boss, or with the strategy of the company, or that didn't have good a relationship with ND or Druckmann. Jeff said he (and Bend) is happy with all these things. He didn't have to lie, so he has been honest.