Following a report stating that Sony rejected Days Gone 2 — an open-world zombie game sequel to 2019’s Days Gone, an ex-Sony Bend developer confirmed that Days Gone 2 was indeed pitched to Sony and it would have featured a substantial online mode that could have included “a shared universe with co-op”.
“We wanted co-op from the beginning [in Days Gone 1], but obviously you have to make concessions for what you’re not going to be able to do,” he explained during a podcast with God of War creator David Jaffe (via VGC).
“It would’ve been a secondary mode if we’d have done it in the first one, or even in another one. I wouldn’t have complicated the main narrative… because that’s really what we’re good at. That was the strength of the first title, so build on that and make it better.
“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.”
Asked if those plans would’ve made it into a sequel, Ross said: “It’s one of the things that we had in our pitch, yeah. It was the idea of a shared universe with co-op play.”
As for the current status of Days Gone 2, while Ross did state he worked on a pitch for it, he did not confirm nor deny if a sequel was in development.
“I don’t think it’s publicly confirmed what the status of [Days Gone 2] is. I don’t want to be the guy who’s the official source for whatever that is.”
Why Did Sony Cancel Days Gone 2?
However, he did suggest why Sony may have cancelled Days Gone 2.
“To answer your question, in that context, 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,” he said. “We changed our number from 45 to something like 120.”
“Days Gone has sold more copies than every game the studio has ever made combined. So it’s successful in that way, and in the community and player response. But the critics… yeah, that was Normandy Beach.”
He added: “There was a starting budget for Days Gone, which was big, but it’s not where we ended. We ended at a much higher number and I think that number is then probably 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, [but] 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.”
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