“By the time I left Sony, Days Gone had been out for a year and a half (and a month) and had sold over 8 million copies. It has since sold even more, and made over a million sales on Steam. The local studio management always made us feel it was a big disappointment“, at commented Jeff Ross as soberly as possible. In other words, Days gone may have exceeded the 10 million copies sold mark since its release in the spring of 2019. In his other tweets, the director also reveals that Shawn Layden is not the one who blocked the road to the successor of Days gone and that the former boss of PlayStation Studios (in office until October 2019) was on the contrary “the greatest defender” Game.
Jeff Ross had as a reminder left Bend Studio in December 2020, believing he had covered the issue and especially knowing that Sony Interactive Entertainment had not given the green light for the production of a Days Gone 2. A refusal revealed in a article by Jason Schreier and which seems even more surprising now that we have a clear idea of the sales made by this new license unveiled at E3 2016. For his part, Ghost of Tsushima has already had a Director’s Cut with an extension, pending a very likely sequel and a movie adaptation. Difficult in these conditions not to understand the frustration of Jeff Ross.
If we can object that two similar sales figures do not necessarily have the same profitability, if we assume that the budgets are not the same and that the selling price of Days gone fell faster and more often than that of Ghost of Tsushima, it is difficult to see how Bend Studio’s game could be qualified as a commercial disappointment. Its critical reception, on the other hand, is quite far from that of the new license of Sucker Punch with a 72 against an 85 on OpenCritic. It is also true that the development of Days gone spanned more years, but that was largely because it was the team’s first AAA Siphon Filter.
As a reminder, we have known since June 2021 that Bend Studio is now working on a new open world license which is partly based on the work carried out on Days gone. A direction probably more risky than making a Days Gone 2 and for which Bend Studio is still looking a lot of people.
Last spring, Jeff Ross discussed the situation in David Jaffe’s podcast, explaining that he thought he could make a much better sequel and had plans to include co-op in particular. Despite the disappointment, he also seemed to understand the choice of SIE from an economic point of view. “When we started Days Gone there were 45 of us in the studio and we were wondering how to make an open world with this workforce. The solution was to grow so we went from 45 to something like 120. There was a high starting budget for Days Gone but we went way over it and I think that number would have been the starting point for a following. Those Sony AAAs … they really come at a cost. I believe the first Siphon Filter cost $ 1 million or $ 2 million. The second clearly cost $ 2 million because it was done in one year. So the ROI was great, but for games that require you to sell 4 or 5 million copies just to be profitable … you have to be very confident, because Sony doesn’t have Microsoft’s money and they must use it very intelligently and make their catalog varied“, he commented. Other interesting revelations await us perhaps since David Jaffe has invited again Jeff Ross on his podcast.
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