Sony has shut down Dark Outlaw Games one year after its founding and while it was reportedly 'still in the early stages' of developing its project

• Sony has shut down Dark Outlaw Games one year after its founding
• The studio was reportedly in the early stages of developing its project
• Sony is making additional cuts elsewhere, including in mobile development, and "around 50 people" have been laid off

Sony has shut down Dark Outlaw Games one year after its founding, and is also making cuts across mobile game development.

As spotted by Eurogamer, ResetEra user J-Soul first broke the news that a new project was "still in the early stages" of development when Sony pulled funding from the "incubation studio" founded last year under Call of Duty Zombies veteran Jason Blundell.

This is now reportedly the second game project helmed by Blundell that Sony has shut down after Deviation Games. Deviation Games was formed in 2020 and was working on an original AAA IP, but the studio was later closed in March 2024.

J-Soul also reported that there have been "an unspecified number of layoffs within PlayStation in the US and UK" and that the number is said to be "small."

The ResetEra user also claimed that PlayStation is moving away from the mobile game market, but will continue to support previously announced titles like MLB The Show Mobile, Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble, and other NCSOFT titles but "outside of these titles, we will be scaling back in this space" to "focus our efforts on a few select high impact projects."

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier later confirmed the closure of Dark Outlaw Games on BlueSky, and also verified that PlayStation is making other cuts, "including in mobile development," and that "around 50 people" have been laid off.

Dark Outlaw's shutdown comes one month after PlayStation closed down Bluepoint Games, the studio responsible for the modern remakes of Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls.

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hermen Hulst released an internal statement at the time, suggesting that "rising development costs" were a factor in the studio's shuttering.

The closure came five years after Sony acquired the developer, and after PlayStation canceled Bluepoint's live-service God of War project, which it had been working on until January 2025. It reportedly spent the last year pitching new ideas before it was officially closed down last month. An estimated 70 employees were laid off.

The best gaming consoles

➡️ Read our full guide to the best gaming consoles
1. Best overall:
PlayStation 5 Slim
2. Best budget:
Xbox Series S
3. Best handheld:
Nintendo Switch 2
4. Most powerful:
PlayStation 5 Pro

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.