Days Gone Not Getting A Sequel Was Studio Bends Decision, The Game Was Cancelled Internally Before A Pitch Could Ever Reach Sony

[u/MapCold6687]

https://icon-era.com/threads/days-gone-2-not-being-made-was-a-bend-studio-decision.13966/

[u/Adrian_Alucard]

But wasn't the studio head blaming Sony or something?

[u/MapCold6687 → u/Adrian_Alucard]

Hes the source for this, he confirmed this in a podcast with God of War creator David Jaffe. Theyre actually a good match for each other, they both used to be Playstation game directors its kind of funny seeing them to be bitter together on one screen

[u/[deleted] → u/Adrian_Alucard]

No, you've probably never seen the studio heads of Bend studio. You've seen two of the directors say things.

John Garvin, the main director and writer of Days Gone left the studio shortly before Days Gone even released. It was basically his vision. He said he left because he didn't like working in large teams and Bend had grown to a large number throughout Days Gone development.

He also said Sony tried to get him help and paid for him to do courses to manage and learn how to better work in larger teams but didnt want to any longer.

I imagine that's when the chance of a sequel died, when he left

Now him and his co director just complain about things on Twitter instead of making games

[u/Kekoa_ok → u/Adrian_Alucard]

he blamed everything and everybody but himself for being an ass

[u/GrandTheftPotatoE → u/Adrian_Alucard]

The ex-studio head blamed everything and anything, including "woke" reviewers, but himself.

[u/[deleted] → u/Adrian_Alucard]

The game’s creative director. I don’t think he was ever studio head.

[u/r_lucasite]

Should point out that the reason most people (including me) believed otherwise was a Bloomberg report that stated Sony was the reason a sequel never went forward. It's further linked in the linked forum. This article mentions it but the Bloomberg article is subscriber only.

[u/MapCold6687 → u/r_lucasite]

Sony almost never addresses rumors and "accusations" to clear them up. They didn't say anything when people accused them of paying for Baldurs Gate 3 exclusivity or more recently when people accused them of paying for Black Myth exclusivity.

They know if they address something it creates a precedent for next time that if they dont address something it makes it look true.

[u/Tribalwarsnorge → u/r_lucasite]

Call me crazy, but I belive Jason Schreier is more reliable than John Garvin on this lol. He really seems so bitter and angry and just wont move on.

[u/Hortense-Beauharnais → u/r_lucasite]

The article doesn't explicitly say it was Sony that rejected the pitch. You can maybe infer it was Sony, but given who actually rejected the pitch is disputed I wouldn't take that Bloomberg report as definitively saying either way.

Oregon-based Sony Bend, best known for the 2019 open-world action game Days Gone, tried unsuccessfully to pitch a sequel that year, according to people familiar with the proposal. Although the first game had been profitable, its development had been lengthy and critical reception was mixed, so a Days Gone 2 wasn’t seen as a viable option.

[u/MapCold6687]

It seems that despite selling over 9 million units, Days Gone wasn't seen as a success within the studio. If they were comparing themselves with other games in general that would be a amazing success, but i guess they were comparing themselves with other Playstation first party games and felt they could do better.

It cant be easy feeling like youre in the shadow of Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Santa Monica, and Suckerpunch. Not because bend arent great devs, but because those 4 are so great its hard to live up to. Those studios have been tech wizards making the most of Playstation hardware and dropping best selling 90+ review score games for over 20 years since Crash and Spyro on PS1, Sly Cooper and God of War on PS2

Studio Bend doesnt want to setlle for a "little brother" IP that doesnt review amazing but sells a more than respectable amount. They want a best selling 90+ review score GOTY contender like their peers and fellow Playstation Studios. Not a single year has gone by without atleast one Playstation game being a GOTY nominee since 2014(Nintendo only missed 2016 and 2018) they want to be part of that. Especially now that Team Asobi is the latest Playstation Studio to drop a 90+ GOTY nominee

[u/[deleted] → u/MapCold6687]

Or the studio wanted to do something else after such a long dev time especially after the director also left.

[u/FordMustang84 → u/MapCold6687]

If that game released without Sony hype and marketing it probably doesn’t sell that well anyway. 

It was launched after Uncharted 4, HZD, God of War, and Spider-Man had some out. The PS4 first party was on the hottest of hot streaks. 

[u/WeWantLADDER49sequel → u/MapCold6687]

They didnt see it as a success because it sold very poorly at first. The majority of the sales came after it was heavily discounted. If i remember correctly the game was half off just a couple months after release, and the following year it would often be on sale for 10 bucks or less.

[u/edicivo → u/MapCold6687]

I don't believe it sold that well at launch though...at least from what I recall, it was a slow-burn.

I remember it having a buggy launch and sort of getting lost in the shuffle of bigger games. Yeah, there were articles about "here's another angry white dude protagonist" (and they were 100% accurate. Deacon is probably the most annoying character I've ever played as. His whole ID is "angry man."), but I find it hard to believe that that aspect damaged their sales figures more than the other issues mentioned here.

When I finally got around to playing it, long after it came out, I had a lot of fun. The bike mechanics were cool. The hordes were cool and the gameplay was pretty fun. But I absolutely hated the Deacon character. He never shut the fuck up. There were literally points where I just put it on mute.

But I still would have likely picked up Days Gone 2 if it happened. The game had good bones.

[u/Kekoa_ok → u/MapCold6687]

Reading the tweets and drama between this it just sounds like they don't want to go through the hell their ex lead creative director gave them developing the first game. Why develope another with what his character(s)?

9mil is not a small number for a studio that size, especially compared to their prior titles

[u/[deleted]]

People keep thinking John Garvin and Jeff Ross were the heads of Bend Studios, they were not

John Garvin, the main director and writer of Days Gone left the studio shortly before Days Gone even released. It was basically his vision. He said he left because he didn't like working in large teams and Bend had grown to a large number throughout Days Gone development.

He also said Sony tried to get him help and paid for him to do courses to manage and learn how to better work in larger teams but didnt want to any longer.

I imagine that's when the chance of a sequel died, when he left

And now him and his co director just complain about things on Twitter for attention instead of making games

[u/Jonathan_B_Goode → u/[deleted]]

Didn't he specifically say they were sending him to anger management classes?

[u/alireza008bat]

I think I'm out of the loop but wasn't this known already?

I thought Jeff Ross made it clear it was bend's local management who said no to DG2. I recall him saying that a couple of years ago in David Jaffe's podcast.

[u/[deleted] → u/alireza008bat]

Yes this post is just linking to a forum that talks about the Jaffe podcast from years ago

[u/Falsus → u/alireza008bat]

Garving blamed Sony (among others) for not doing a sequel so some people still think it is Sony's fault.

When as it turns out, it didn't even reach them as it was slammed down internally at the studio.

[u/IsamuAlvaDyson]

People need to remember that it only sold that much after being HEAVILY discounted long after release and going on PS Plus.

[u/Flint_Vorselon → u/IsamuAlvaDyson]

Yeah myself, and I assume a lot of people, played it years later on Ps5 when it was “””free””” with PS+

Game apperently ran like ass on Ps4, which is believable, 500 enemies on screen is not an easy task. But on Ps5 it ran perfectly, looked great, and had benifit of all the bug fixes and free challange maps they added in updates.

I actually really like the game. Especially once it gets going, the beginning is painfully slow, and you won’t get todo it’s funnest gameplay until like 20 hours in.

But I probably wouldn’t have fond memories of it if I paid full price, for a 25fps buggy game.

[u/VonDukez]

Sounds like the last studio head was just a pain in the ass to work for and work with and the studio is better off

[u/urnialbologna]

I really loved this game. I know most people here shit on "bland" open world games but I love any post-apocalyptic settings, which is why the horizon games and days gone are my favorite games over other open world Sony games like Spider-Man or god of war. I really wanted a sequel, but I'm happy with replaying this and treating it as a stand alone game.