PlayStation Shifts Focus Back to Premium Single-Player Games

PlayStation used its most recent State of Play showcase to make it clear where its focus is. After a series of costly live-service stumbles, it’s getting back to focusing on premium, narrative-driven, single-player games. That statement was made clear with how it started and ended the hourlong show.

The showcase began with an extended look at gameplay from Marvel’s Wolverine, the new superhero title from Insomniac Games. Over seven minutes of bloody action, Logan sliced and diced his way through a bunch of baddies as he tried to rescue some captured mutants, briefly teaming up with Jean Grey for some help taking them down. Insomniac is well-known for its excellent single-player adventures, like Ratchet & Clank and the recent Spider-Man games, and Wolverine seems poised to keep up the tradition when it launches in September.

The show ended with a major reveal: God of War Laufey, the next mainline, single-player entry in the God of War series from Santa Monica Studio. Laufey stars Faye, Kratos’ wife, and based on the extensive 23-minute trailer shown during the showcase, it looks to have all of the hallmarks of the recent God of War games: gripping combat, a magical world to explore, and charming, chatty companions. In this case, it’s a gelatinous cube voiced by Jack Quaid and sentient ribbons attached to Faye’s sword.

Sandwiched between those showcase titles was a number of third-party games that were similarly single-player focused. Many are launching over the next few months, like Remedy Entertainment’s Control Resonant and Konami’s Silent Hill: Townfall on September 24th and Capcom’s Onimusha: Way of the Sword on September 25th. Some were farther out, like Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider reboot in February. PlayStation also showed off its own slasher sequel with Until Dawn 2, which launches sometime next year.

What wasn’t present at State of Play was much in the way of live-service or multiplayer games. The main exception was a look at season 2 of Marathon, the struggling extraction shooter from Destiny developer Bungie. But there was nothing about Fairgames, Horizon’s co-op spinoff, or any brand-new, live-service title from Sony.

This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Sony’s live-service push, for the most part, hasn’t worked out, despite the company making it a key pillar of its strategy. Much like the rest of the industry, it has had more misses than hits. Helldivers 2 is a big success and Gran Turismo 7 is chugging along. But other games haven’t been so lucky, with rounds of layoffs at Marathon and Destiny 2 developer Bungie, the abrupt shutdown of the very expensive Concord, the cancellation of a The Last of Us multiplayer game and an unannounced live-service God of War game, and no Fairgames in sight despite being revealed nearly three years ago.

This doesn’t mean that Sony is completely retreating from live-service games. There are likely some unannounced projects, and new titles have been announced as recently as February. It’s also worth noting that past State of Plays have had a similar focus on single-player titles, albeit with few major first-party Sony releases. But at a time when the console space is struggling, and Sony in particular has seen a significant drop in first-party game sales (not to mention hardware sales), getting back to basics makes a lot of sense. The PlayStation brand is closely associated with single-player epics like The Last of Us and God of War, and the State of Play was a chance to show that they’re still a priority for Sony. And while the rest of this year seems largely sorted for PlayStation, there are still a lot of question marks about its future: Laufey, the remakes of the original God of War trilogy, and Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet are all without release dates.

Actually playing those games is a more expensive proposition than ever. But in stepping back from live-service games, Sony has a much clearer path to convincing people to do that: Make memorable, expansive single-player games that you can’t play anywhere else.