Bungie’s Creative Studios (BCS) team has become fully integrated with PlayStation Studios.
Bridget O’Neill, the former senior director of BCS, has been appointed as PlayStation’s senior director of its Creative department. Her new position will see her “build the foundation for a creative team that can support all PlayStation live-service games.”
When Bungie laid off 220 employees in July, it also announced it would become more deeply integrated with its parent company. 115 employees were moved over to Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The creation of a new studio to build one of its incubation projects is also part of those plans, but Bungie and PlayStation have yet to provide any information on that.
According to O’Neill, BCS will still have a hand in Destiny 2 and Marathon’s development, while also “sharing our experience…with other studios that are building live service games. […] With PlayStation and Bungie working together, we will be able to give a huge jumpstart on development for new games as they enter this super competitive market.”
What does live-service look like for PlayStation now?
In the past year, PlayStation’s plans for the live-service genre have fluctuated. At least two projects, spinoffs for Twisted Metal and The Last of Us, were rather openly cancelled after some time in development.
Meanwhile, Firewalk’s multiplayer shooter Concord was pulled less than a month after launch. The studio’s current fate, and the game’s future, are unknown at the moment.
The only known entity is a co-op spinoff for Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise. But even that is shrouded in secrecy, and it may not be the only multiplayer offering from that particular series.