As a longtime PlayStation fan who has seen the height of the PS4 era and the release of so many critically-acclaimed games, it’s not hard to notice the ever-growing decline since the PS5 released, and with the price increases that Sony has announced on its hardware and subscriptions, I do wonder… what can PlayStation do to reclaim all that praise they had 10 years ago?
Nobody can deny the impact The Last of Us had when it released. For years now, PlayStation has been known for its quality first-party studios such as Santa Monica Studio, Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog. However, in more recent years, whilst the quality of the games from these studios remains just as good, the increase in the complexity and the potential of modern hardware means that there’s now more work than ever required in making the games, lengthening game development but shortening fans’ patience.
The First-Party Release Problem
It may be hard to believe, but since the PS5 released back in November 2020, Naughty Dog has only fully developed ONE game on the system (and no, I’m not counting The Last of Us Part II Remaster). Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet was announced at The Game Awards in 2024, but still has no release date. This is a running trend with plenty of studios as of late, but most notably, PS first-party studios. However, this leads to my next point.
Years ago, a rumour spread that Sony planned on developing multiple live service games. What followed was the incredibly unsuccessful release of Concord with its two-week lifespan, and the cancellations of The Last of Us Factions 2, a God of War live-service game and a live-service shooter from Days Gone developer Bend Studio. It’s safe to say that the rumour had some truth to it, and it was a terrible idea from the start.
Back in 2019, Hermen Hulst (co-founder of Guerrilla and Managing Director of one of my favourite games: Horizon Zero Dawn), became Head of PlayStation Studios. At this time, he’d worked at Sony for almost 20 years, and I believed that this was a positive step for the business. I truly felt that Hulst was going to continue to push the first-party studios to keep doing what they were doing, because it was working.
“I am beyond excited to have the opportunity now to lead such an inspired and talented team whose singular mission is to build amazing games for PlayStation fans.” – Hermen Hulst, back in 2019
The Live-Service Push Changed PlayStation’s Direction
My presumption is that the folks at PlayStation wanted to bank on the hype of live-service games and believed it would pay off, but in my view, the push towards these projects contributed to delays, cancellations, studio closures and layoffs. Hulst was supposed to keep the momentum that the business had during the PS4 cycle going, but instead, upon the PS5’s release, it led to the never-ending joke that “the PS5 has no games”. At this point, can you say people were wrong?
I could go into another rant about the numerous studio closures PlayStation has done, but with how much I can say on it, it’d be best for a different article. However, I have to mention Bluepoint Games; they were so talented in remaking much-loved older PlayStation games and a personal favourite of mine… that’s one I’ll never forgive you for, Sony.
Price Hikes Have Made the Decline Feel Worse
The recent price hike on hardware hasn’t helped either, with the PS5 now costing a huge £569.99, and this is almost 6 years after it was released! The PS5 Pro and PS Portal also went up in price, and to any new or lapsed customers, PS Plus’s 1-month and 3-month subscriptions across all tiers now cost more.
Sony needs to reevaluate their decisions, and to start, that would be to stop trying to pump out live-service games. The PlayStation team have excelled for a long time at creating outstanding single-player experiences: Uncharted, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon, Ratchet & Clank, and the list can keep going, so I want them to just remind themselves of what their studios are capable of.
With all that being said, I think they can return to their glory days. They’ve delivered some amazing titles like Astro Bot, Spider-Man 2 and Ghost of Yotei in recent years, so I have faith that PlayStation can make this fan of over 25 years proud again.