Oh boy.
Back in February, Sony announced the restructure of their Japan Studio, which would now focus around Team ASOBI, the team behind Astro’s Playroom. First-Party development will likely be reduced or halted entirely, as well as having localization, external production, and IP management moved to PlayStation Studios. And now, the great egress of some of their best developers of the past has begun.
Among them, Gavin Moore of the recent PS5 Demon’s Souls remaster announced his departure from the studio after 18 years, and almost 25 years with the company.
He’s not the only one. Brendon Pritchard, who worked as global relations on a number of their games has said his goodbyes to the studio.
And we’re not even into the deep cuts. Shunsuke Saito, who did character designs for games like Gravity Rush 1 & 2 has left.
Executive Producer Yasutaka Asakura:
Kentaro Motomura, who had a storied career there, as well.
As of the end of March today, I am pleased to retire from SIE, which has been indebted for many years. I’m just grateful to have been involved in many works such as Dark Cloud, WILDARMS, Solsaku, Bloodborne, Everybody’s Golf! We will continue to produce games in the future, so we look forward to your continued support. Thank you!
Kentaro Motomura
But they’re not the first to leave. Keiichiro Toyama (director, Silent Hill), Junya Okura (designer, Gravity Rush) and Kazunobu Sato (lead designer, The Last Guardian) left late last year to form Bokeh Game Studio. They’re already at work on a new psychological horror game.
You look back on their output over the years, and you see some damn good games. But those times are gone, like Gavin Moore implied:
Source: IGN
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