Bend Studio’s next game, following Days Gone, could be both unveiled and released in 2027. MP1st writes, citing sources said to be familiar with the project, that the studio plans to show the game next year and release it in the same year. According to the sources, work on the project is currently well advanced.
According to the report, the new game will not be a sequel to Days Gone. The project will be played from a third-person perspective and will feature co-op, or cooperative play, but it will not be a continuously updated live-service game.
If this information is accurate, the decision would be understandable given what the studio has experienced in recent years. At the beginning of 2025, Sony was reportedly canceling the live-service game being developed at Bend Studio, as well as another project being worked on by Bluepoint Games. Mass layoffs were carried out at the studio in the following months of that year. According to Bloomberg, Bend lost approximately one-third of its employees.
Released for PS4 in 2019, Days Gone remains the studio’s latest game. Although the game received mixed reviews from critics, scoring 71 on Metacritic, it gained a loyal fan base over time.
Screenwriter and director John Garvin, who left Bend in 2020, attributed the game’s middling reviews to technical issues, critics who did not play the game properly, and “woke” reviewers who could not accept the protagonist’s character. The studio later distanced itself from its former employee’s comments, stating that they did not reflect the team’s views.
Sony confirmed in 2021 that Bend was working on a new IP, meaning an entirely new game series. According to the company, the project was being built on the deep open-world systems developed for Days Gone.