Mysterious first-party PlayStation studio has been confirmed

Former Call of Duty zombies director Jason Blundell is leading a mysterious new first-party game studio for Sony's PlayStation division.

2

Sony has a new unannounced first-party game studio that's working behind the scenes on a enigmatic project. The studio is called Dark Outlaw Games, and it's being led by Treyarch and Call of Duty veteran developer Jason Blundell, who is serving as studio head and director of the game. Blundell's past experience gives an indication that Dark Outlaw could be working on a shooter game.

The news was confirmed by Blundell himself in a recent interview with former Giant Bomb member Jeff Gerstmann. What makes the news even more interesting is that Sony has been cancelling games and closing down studios left and right, and that Jason Blundell had previous experience working with Sony on a PlayStation project outside of Treyarch. Years ago, Blundell worked at Deviation Games, a studio that was contracted for a PlayStation project. Blundell left in 2022, and Deviation shut down in 2024 amid blistering layoffs and rising costs.

Here's what Blundell said in the interview:

I've had the amazing opportunity to create a new studio within PlayStation Studios, for Sony. The studio is called Dark Outlaw Games, and we've been working away in the shadows for a while. When we've got something to talk about we'll step into the light.

The story for me is about the game, not the studio, so that's the reason we're not doing a sort of fanfare and shout it from the rooftops...it's like, let's get something. But yeah, Dark Outlaw Games.

It's such a privilege to be able to do it with Sony as a new first-party studio. Sony doesn't set up first-party studios all the time, to have that privilege is humbling and it's very exciting.

Blundell goes on to say that Dark Outlaw is in the "staffing-up phase," but that he's also trying to keep things "low key." It's unknown if any of the former Deviation developers are working with Blundell at Dark Outlaw.