Former Bend Studio Head Jeff Ross revealed that the studio had pitched an open-world Resistance game to Sony after the release of Days Gone. Ross also revealed that Sony themselves were interested in a reboot of the Syphon Filter franchise, but that he had zero ideas on how to do so. Ultimately, Sony declined both pitches, according to Ross.
Jeff Ross appeared on a podcast with God of War creator David Jaffe and former Bend Studio Creative Director John Garvin. In an interview with Jaffe, Ross talked about his recent comments towards Sony’s treatment of the Days Gone franchise. Specifically, how he felt the company treated Days Gone as a “disappointment” even though it had managed to sell 8 million copies. Ross further clarifies that, while they pitched a Days Gone 2 to Sony, it likely did not make it past the local management level.
Why Sony declined a Syphon Filter reboot and open-world Resistance
Though Days Gone had flopped in Sony’s eyes, the company still wanted Bend Studio to work on other IPs. To this, Ross states that Sony themselves suggested a Syphon Filter reboot. However, Ross adds that he believes this was not a genuine offer and that it was simply something to keep the studio busy. Furthermore, Ross himself states that he had “zero ideas on how to reboot Syphon Filter,” and was instead interested in making an open-world Resistance game.
The pitch I was making was, ‘open-world Resistance would be fucking rad’. All these open-world loops that we figured out, it almost wrote itself with Resistance where theres so many aspects of that property that kind of lends itself to open-world gameplay. But they weren’t interested in that either, and I don’t know how well it sold. But yeah, they were interested in almost anything except for Days Gone 2.
Sony allegedly declined Bend Studio’s Syphon Filter pitch, even though Ross believes that the company was not interested in Bend Studios working on the project regardless. While it seems that Sony wasn’t interested in the idea from the Days Gone developer, that’s not to say that it won’t be open to future Syphon Filter reboot ideas in the future.
In other news, recent reports reveal that the PS5 outsold the Xbox Series X and S nearly ten times over in Japan. Sony also announced that the PlayStation Tournaments feature will be coming to PS5 in an upcoming firmware update. Additionally, data mining suggests that the rumored PlayStation Network Discord integration is on the horizon.
[Source: MP1st]
Update (01/10/2022): This article was updated to add more context to Sony’s decline of Bend Studio’s Syphon Filter pitch.
