PlayStation is shutting down one of its first-party studios before it ever put out a game. On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that PlayStation is closing Dark Outlaw Games.
If you recall, Dark Outlaw Games was formed in March 2025 by former Call of Duty Zombies lead Jason Blundell.
At the time, Blundell said that they had been “working away in the shadows”, but when they had something to talk about, they would step forward.
That something never came, and the studio is gone after only a year. It also becomes the second Blunell studio to be shut down by PlayStation. His prior company, Deviation, was closed in 2024.
- MORE LAYOFFS: Epic Games Cuts 1,000 Employees In Mass Layoffs
Details on why the studio is being closed are currently unknown.
In addition to Dark Outlaw Games, Schreier reports that PlayStation is making cuts to its mobile development team as well. In total, roughly 50 people are losing their jobs.
What do you think of PlayStation shutting down another studio and holding layoffs?Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and in this official Insider Gaming Discord.
In other gaming news, read about Epic Games shutting down several popular game modes. And for even more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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Mobile development being cut off. Nobody wants Sony games even for free.
Not too surprised I thought they might make it though give multiplayer game. My guess Nixxes will close because Sony doesn’t want PC ports. Surprised Haven not closed yet still no news on Fairgames. Shows Sony wasted money on acquisitions. Surprised Team Asobi still afloat, FireSprite, Bend, and MediaMolecule. Saros I think flops too and then Housemarque goes under too I mean Returnal flopped and this costs more than that. Guerilla releases flops but Herman will protect them.
Wow this is pretty jacked.
I mean Sony cut the funding to Deviation Studios and then from an outsiders perspective anyway, poached all the talent from Deviation, and created their own studio. It felt like Sony was interest in the game(Which always came off as Sony’s game to challenge Call of Duty in the FPS space) but they wanted to have full control of the game/IP in the future, so they decided that they would cut the investment into a 2nd party project and go all in and make it a 1st party game.
We saw just how hard it is to spin up a studio and make a game from nothing with Perfect Dark (and they did not cheap out on acquiring talent… which actually ended up hurting the studio… too many leaders not enough soldiers apparently). But yeah, with Sony being behind it, and it not being amidst Covid, it did seem like this was going to have a different fate than Perfect Dark.
I never forgot about this side project for Sony, and always figured this would end up being a big ace up their sleeve in a few years, probably in the heart of PS6. But Sony has just spread themselves thin apparently. It does feel like they kept seeing all the news of Xbox constantly acquiring and they didnt want to get too far behind them or something so they made a streak of acquisitions that now that we are a few years in the future, nearly all of them have been pretty shitty acquisitions.
I am thinking about FireSprite, and Fire Walk, Haven, Blue Point (I think they just completely botched this one, this should have been an easy slam dunk for them too, Just put them on a remaster project, it is not like Sony has not been remastering games LoL, they have practically been releasing exclusively remasters this gen… obviously kidding, but they have had plenty of projects for BP to work on).
All of those plus Bungie. Bungie has in no way shown that hey are a studio worth 3.5 billion bucks or however much they spent on them,. They have been nothing but a hole in Sony’s pocket since becoming part of the Sony team.
But that is literally 5 acquisitions out of 6 that have completely been failures. With House Marque being the only studio that seems to have been a good pick up for them. (We dont know how well Sarros is going to do yet but at least they got a damn game out the door compared to all the rest. But with how Returnal sold… It sold half a million before going to PC. So I am not expecting huge sales for Sarros which I think of as Returnal 2 but easier)
WOW TRHAT WAS 5 OUT OF 6 STUDIOS NOT WORKING OUT FOR SONY, AND I DIDNT EVEN ADD IN THE STUDIOP FROM THIS VERY ARTICLE. SO REALLY SONY HAS HAD FAILURES ON 6 OUT OF 7 STUDIOS THIS GENERATION. And I am not even counting London Studio or Japan Studio or Pixel Opus.
(and yes Bungie did eventually get Marathon out. But the game has not probably even made its marketing budget back yet let alone the development cost… and lets not forget the money that hey had to fork over to the artist they stole from too.
– Japan Studio
– Manchester Studio
– London Studio
– Neon Koi
– PixelOpus
– Firewalk Studios
– Bluepoint
-Dark Outlaw
-Bungie has been a complete bust (imo)
That is a much easier way to look at it compared to my novel of a comment. But for Xbox getting all the hate it feels like when it comes to gaming news and headlines this generation… I thin we need to take a little closer look at Sony too. They have got their consoles sold, I will give them major kudos for that. But they have not had anywhere near the success when it comes to making the high quality software that we all loved during the PS4 generation!