One of the games people expected to see at PlayStation Experience was Sony Bend Studio’s “big next-gen PlayStation 4 title using Unreal Engine 4,” which entered full production earlier this year.
Addressing Bend’s absence at PSX was Scott Rohde, PlayStation Game Development Head for Sony Worldwide Studios America. In an interview with Kinda Funny Games he said, “I’m really excited about the progress [of the game]. It is really looking great. I love it, [Shuhei Yoshida] loves it, but the timing has to be right.”
Sony Bend has been quiet since the release of Uncharted: Golden Abyss in Japan in 2011, with job listings in 2012 and 2013 suggesting the studio was working on a AAA game on PlayStation Vita that never materialized.
Rohde confirmed that the rumors of Sony Bend prototyping other projects before this new PS4 game are true “for the most part.”
He continued:
It’s very difficult when you’re starting anything new. Vita was such a big thing for them… Golden Abyss still in my top five, for sure, on Vita. They did try a lot of different things and it took them a long time to settle on something that we were all happy with.
And keep in mind, that is a small team. This is not a 150 man, 200 man Naughty Dog style team. This is a small team. So it takes a little bit longer to get a prototype to a point where we can start massaging it. That’s kind of where we are right now.
Rohde went on to say that what he loves about Sony is they are willing to wait and make sure something is “baked” properly.
“You can’t just say, formulaicly, let’s crank this thing out, and you’ve got two years to do it and this budget,” he said. “You know what? That’s going to be a fail every time. So, we prototype with a lot of stuff and sometimes it gets to a point where you’ve spent a decent amount of money on it, and then you decide, ‘Hmm, maybe not for us.'”
Specifically speaking about the Bend team, Rohde said they are at the point where everyone’s smiling and they can’t wait to show off each milestone in their playable build to Sony. “We can’t wait to show you guys,” he added.
[Source: Kinda Funny Games (YouTube)]
