PlayStation has been one of the best studios for single-player story-driven games for a number of years now. Hence why its acquisition of developers that focus largely on live service games, and confirmation it will deliver ten games of that ilk over the next few years, might be a little surprising. Shedding a little light on what to expect from its live service era, PlayStation has made it clear its dectet of upcoming games will all be different genres that will hopefully appeal to entirely different audiences.
Like many of you may have thought when you first heard PlayStation was working on ten live service games at once, Gamesindustry.biz's Christopher Drig assumed PlayStation was hedging its bets. That it is creating ten live service games knowing some, if not most, of them will fail, but even if one is a hit on anywhere near the level of a Fortnite or an Apex Legends, PlayStation will have a live service game that lives on for years and generates a massive amount of money.
Apparently, that is not the plan. PlayStation boss Herman Hulst explained the goal is not to make ten games that are all more or less the same in the hope that one or two of them stick. “PlayStation Studios are making a variety of games that could be referred to as 'live services', targeting different genres, different release schedules, and at different scales,” Hulst explained. “We are also creating games for different audiences, and I take confidence from our track record in creating worlds and stories that PlayStation fans love.”
There is a tendency in gaming circles to hear the term live service and assume what a game is going to be before even seeing a single frame of it. There is a somewhat good reason for that since if you're not a Fortnite or a Destiny, live service games are labeled failures by many, even if those failures have millions of players, such as Fall Guys. PlayStation might not have a Fall Guys clone on its books, but with three live service-centered studios brought on board recently, including the behemoth that is Bungie, you can rest assured each of its ten titles will apparently be pretty unique.
The difficulty when it comes to defining what exactly a live service game is also plays into the assumption PlayStation is working on ten slightly tweaked versions of the same game. As Redfall prepares to launch this week, some of those who plan on playing it have been arguing over whether Arkane's new vampire game is live service or not. Promised more updates than any Arkane game to have come before it, some believe that coupled with its always-online requirement makes it live service. Others have argued without a battle pass and regular content updates, it doesn't fit the definition.