Bend Studio appears to be working on a live service game.
As reported by GameRant, the studio’s latest job opening for a lead product manager specifically mentions live service, both to describe the project, and requiring live service experience for applicants.
Under their responsibilities, the job description explains their next hire needs to do this:
“Lead our agile strategy and processes in alignment with our studio goals, the specific needs of our teams, and key phases of development (pre-production, production, live services). “
Under job requirements, it says this:
“Hands-on game development experience in leadership roles shipping AAA live service games. “
Finally, under additional or plus requirements, they cite this:
“Experience redefining studios from traditional “boxed product” focused game development into live service development studios in a key leadership role.”
The job description also mentions Scrum and Agile, which are specific management techniques used in software development meant to streamline operations. The description certainly makes it sound like Bend Studio isn’t necessarily familiar with Agile or Scrum, but they have a mandate to learn these processes for their next project.
Bend’s latest release was Days Gone, the seeming odd man out in the PlayStation 4’s lineup of single player first party titles. Unlike Horizon, God of War, or Marvel’s Spider-Man, Days Gone received a mixed critical reception, and even among Sony fans the verdict on it is divided.
More importantly to Sony, it wasn’t the sales success its first party brethren were. Bend claims they pitched making a sequel to Days Gone, as well as a new open world Resistance title, and Sony rejected both pitches.
We now understand that Bend is one of many studios that have been tasked with making a live service title, under the exiting PlayStation boss Jim Ryan. To be frank, unlike the likes of Insomniac and Santa Monica Studio, at least this makes sense for Bend.
Bend wasn’t tied to a successful franchise that needed to have sequels and spinoffs. They also weren’t scheduled to make any spinoffs of games started by other studios. Sony had a need for live service games, and they didn’t have anything else to do. It wasn’t so much that Sony was sure Bend would find success here, but there was no harm and having them try to do it.
Based on this job opening, Bend Studio is closer to the start of development, though it is possible that they are already well underway in development. We may not hear about this game for a while, but at least it’s good to know that Bend does have a project under their name.
