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Former Studio Lead Suggets Days Gone Sequel Exempt From Sequel For Being Short On Sales, Mentions Of Co-Op Aimed For Follow-up

When reviewing the lineup of anticipated releases for PlayStation 4, many of the titles that arrived proved to be impressive sellers on behalf of the studios and internal teams that worked under Sony Interactive Entertainment. Titles like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II being awarded Game of the Year at December’s The Game Awards. Or more recently with the new pursuit in regards to Ghost of Tsushima.

In that, the Sucker Punch Productions’ developed title is already planned to being adapted into a full-length film. While plans for the coming motion picture is still premature, PlayStation Pictures alongside 87Eleven Entertainment is already told to be involved with the production. Additionally, John Wick Director Chad Stahelski is to be taking the chair for the film also.

However, not everything that came to PlayStation 4 is all grandeur in reality. In fact, some don’t receive a follow-up. In a recent report from Bloomberg, it is indicated that Days Gone falls victim to this. Now in a new interview with Days Gone director Jeff Ross, he elaborates that the sales did not meet Sony’s expectations for a second game.

Ross starts by stating, “I don’t think it’s publicly confirmed what the status of it [Days Gone 2] is. I don’t want to be the guy who’s the official source for whatever that is.” But, he goes on to discuss the cost for production and how the turnout for investment might work in the perspective of the PlayStation company.

To answer your question, in that context though, I will just say that the calculus for Sony at this point is… when a game like Days Gone started, we were 45 people, we were walking around asking,” how we could build an open-world game with 45 people”, and the answer was we grew. We changed our number from 45 to something like 100- 120.

There was a starting budget for Days Gone, which was big, and  it’s not where we ended. We ended at a much higher number and I think that number is the starting point for the next one. Sony with these big triple-A games […] they’re not cheap games to make. The first Syphon Filter I think cost $1m or $2m. The second one was definitely $2m because we did it in a year.

So the return of investment on those is great – for games where you have to sell four of five million copies just to break even. There’s got to be a confidence in the return, because Sony doesn’t have the cash that Microsoft does and they’ve got to use it very intelligently and they’ve got to stay focused on a diverse portfolio.

But although the uncertainty of a Days Gone sequel is apparent, Ross cannot be certain especially since he is not at Bend Studio anymore. However, he does later in the discussion disclose some interesting features that were planned for the second game. “We wanted co-op from the beginning [in Days Gone], but obviously you have to make concessions for what you’re not going to be able to do.

“But then take this world that you’ve built, and all these assets and systems, and repurpose them for some sort of similarly themed multiplayer version of this universe. So [it] would be with guys like Deacon trying to survive, building up a clubhouse or a crew. I think it would be fun to be in that world cooperatively and see what horde battles could be like.”

Most interesting is that it appears both Bend Studio and Guerrilla Games aim for a similar outcome with its sequels. In a previous report from Video Game Chronicles, the developer planned to orchestrate cooperative features into the follow-up that did not make it into the first game. You can read the full report by heading here.

Would you play Days Gone 2 if it ever released?

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