PlayStation Reportedly Shuts Down Another First-Party Partner Studio

PlayStation Reportedly Shuts Down Another First-Party Partner Studio Southeast Asia Home Amazon Deals Pro-tips by Codashop PC PS4 Xbox One Nintendo Mobile Entertainment EsportsMoreSearch Home More About IGN SEAContactAdvertisePressUser AgreementPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyRSSIGN Southeast Asia is operated under license by Media Prima Digital Sdn Bhd Change Region United States United Kingdom Australia Africa Adria Serbian/Croatian Adria Slovenian Benelux / Dutch Brazil China / 中国 Czechia / Slovakia France Germany Greece / Ελλάδα Hungary India Israel Italy / Italia Japan / 日本 Korea / 한국 Latin America Middle East – English Middle East – الأوسطالشرق Nordic Poland Portugal Southeast Asia Spain / España Turkey / Türkiye world.ign.com Register / Login Register / Login Login Register IGN Misc PlayStation Reportedly Shuts Down Another First-Party Partner Studio Dark Outlaw Games was founded with veterans of another shuttered Sony first-party studio. This post might contain affiliation links. If you buy something through this post, the publisher may get a share of the sale. By Rebekah Valentine  Updated: March 25, 2026, 7:03 a.m. Related reads:MapleStorySEA Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Massive Summer Updates PlayStation has reportedly shut down Dark Outlaw Games, a studio hired by the console maker to make an unknown first-party title, as well as laid off a number of other individuals involved in mobile development.More like thisOpen Back Headphones: A Sound Experience Like No OtherThis comes from Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who posted the news on Bluesky today. Dark Outlaw Games was founded by Jason Blundell at Sony’s behest, and was only quietly announced by Blundell on a podcast in March of last year after having been rumored the year before. At the time he said they had been “working away in the shadows for a while,” and noted that it was on a first-party project for Sony, but the studio never officially announced what its project was.Dark Outlaw was staffed with a number of former members of Deviation Games, Blundell’s previous venture. Blundell, a veteran of Activision and Treyarch on Call of Duty, founded Deviation Games in June of 2021 with fellow Treyarch veteran Dave Anthony, similarly to work on a first-party Sony project. Blundell left the studio in 2022, layoffs took place in 2023, and in 2024, Deviation similarly shut down before it could announce its project.Schreier notes that this decision seems to have come from Sony, which has also laid off a number of individuals in mobile development internally, with roughly 50 jobs lost overall.Both Deviation and Dark Outlaw fall into an ongoing pattern of Sony’s closure of first-party studios, which has also recently included Concord developer Firewalk Studios in 2024, and Demon’s Souls and Shadow of the Colossus Remake studio Bluepoint Games just last month.IGN has reached out to Sony for comment.Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com. Related reads:Samsung Reaches Into Budget Territory With its Latest Mini LED TVs This post might contain affiliation links. If you buy something through this post, the publisher may get a share of the sale. Comments Please enable JavaScript to view the comments. Ad ©2026 IGN Southeast Asia is operated under license by Media Prima Digital Sdn Bhd ‘