I have more to say about games I play/don’t play/the state of the industry. I mean, there’s a lot going on there. Most of it is extremely shitty at the moment. I wrote about it in yesterday’s post, but I have more to say today. It’s pretty fucking bleak. I can’t stop thinking about how PlayStation announced on Thursday, February 19th that it was closing Bluepoint Games. People were talking about it (of course), and I thought it would carry us to the weekend. Most people were furious about it, and I thought that would take us into the weekend.
But, no. Xbox, as they have done for the past few years, said to PlayStation: Hold my beer! In their 25th anniversary year, on a Friday, Microsoft announced that Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox had ‘retired’ and that the second in command (president), Sarah Bond ‘resigned’.
Look. This is just bullshit. I mentioned it yesterday, but I wanted to say it again. It’s fucking bullshit. I don’t doubt that Phil Spencer was planning on retiring sometime soon, but I highly doubt that he would choose to it right before the 25th anniversary (November). And Sarah Bond ‘resigning’? Naw, son. She was presumed to be Spencer’s heir apparent, and there’s no way she would resign abruptly on a Friday night.
This is all ridiculous. And I’m mad that PlayStation seems to be getting away with shitcanning Bluepoint Games.
Side note: Ok. We have to talk about the elephant in the room. A Bloodborne remake. Bear with me. Ever since remakes have become the rage, there’s one that comes up time and time again. Bloodborne (FromSoft). It’s actually pretty funny to watch From fans bring it up every time there’s a big event, only to have their hopes dashed once again.
I’m not in the know at all, but it has always been obvious to me that From did not want to do a remake/remaster/touch it at all. In fact, I would gather than Miyazaki did not like to think of a game once he was done with it. He doesn’t like to do sequels. He had someone else direct Dark Souls II and some say Dark Souls III, though Miyazaki is credited with being the director of the third game. With the latter game, there are conflicting opinions on why he did that game. Some think he did it to make up for the shortcomings of the first game because he did not have the time to finish that one in the manner in which he would have preferred.
Others think that it was just a cynical cash grab. Or rather, that they did the third game in order to make money to do other things. I have not seen anything that supports or validates the second opinion, but of course people are going to say that. I’m not saying that it’s not true. It does seem like he doesn’t like to repeat himself, so I can see that he might have done the sequels begrudgingly. But he did do them.
This is my long-ass way of getting to the point. Which I’m not there yet.
Bluepoint did the Demon’s Souls remake as a launch game for the PlayStation 5. People raved about it, and it looks amazing. However, I would say that it took away some of the uniqueness of the original game (which I did not play). It’s like putting a coating of new paint on a faded wall. Most people raved about the remake, but a few people pointed out that the remake made the game seem a bit soulless (pun intended).
Here’s my point (and I don’t have much of anything to base this on): I don’t think Miyazaki was happy with the remake of Demon’s Souls. If I want to get completely into fanfic, I think Sony/PlayStation kind of nudged him into accepting it. Again, I have no proof for this, but just my thesis from what I’ve read. There were reports that Miyazaki was not happy about it, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.
Back to the Bloodborne remake reports. For whatever reason, I have never thought there would be a remake or a sequel to the game. Again, I am not in the industry, so I have no inside knowledge. As to a Bluepoint remake of Bloodborne, well, there have been murmurs about Miyazaki not wanting that to happen.
I have included an interview above from Greg Miller of Kinda Funny Games with Shuhei Yoshida. In it, Miller asked Yoshida about a BB remake. Yoshida picked his words carefully, but he intimated that Sony did not want to upset Miyazaki.
Putting it all together, a BB remake will only happen if Miyazaki wants it to happen. It appears he does not want it to happen, so I doubt it will. He’s done with the game. He thinks it’s about as perfect as it can get, so why would he go back? That’s my layperson take, anyway.
So. Back to my first point. Some people are outraged that Bluepoint won’t get the chance to remake BB. I think they need to let that go because it wasn’t ever going to happen. I feel like I’m the crazy one (which wouldn’t be the first time) because everyone in gaming is so convinced that it’ll happen one day (or the sequel, even if it’s not FromSoft). But, you know, I just don’t. Obviously, I will eat my words if it turns out that a sequel/remake happens, but just don’t think either will.
Not that this should be a reason for shutting down Bluepoint, of course. And not that I actually know shit about anything in the industry. But it’s a crime that Bluepoint was shuttered so suddenly. They were successful with their Demon’s Souls remake and others. The last game they were working on was a live service game of God of War, which was suddenly shut down. Rumor has it that Sony pushed them to do the live service game because that’s not their thing at all. I mean, they did pitch it, but I would not be surprised if they were heavily pressured to do so.
At any rate, it’s really depressing and sad that the studio has been closed. I hope that they can either be picked up as a studio or barring that, they they all find other jobs. I’m not sanguine about that nor anything else much in this industry, quite frankly. I wish I could feel that there was some hope, but I just don’t. Everything looks bleak right now that I don’t want to hope.