SonyWe’re all entitled to our own opinions on which company has had the best time of it with this generation of consoles, but there’s no denying than when it comes to single-player story driven experiences, PlayStation 4 has absolutely knocked it out of the park.
From Bloodborne to God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn to Spider-Man, and everything in between, Sony’s commitment to grand, immersive stories on PS4 has been admirable. The good news is that you shouldn’t expect that commitment to stop going into the next generation of consoles.
Santa Monica StudioPresident and CEO of Sony’s PlayStation division Jim Ryan recently went on record to reaffirm the company’s passion for story-driven games, telling CNET that it’s “certainly not a genre of gaming we’ll ever walk away from.”
This comment came in response to a question about Sony’s planned approach to live service games in the vein of Anthem and Fallout 76, and if they would play a key role in the future of PlayStation as opposed to single-player stories.
While Ryan believes that service games can be done well, he doesn’t seem to see that as any reason to completely ditch single-player games that offer a one-and-done storytelling experience over the course of a few dozen hours.
He explained:
We’ve never had greater success with our own narrative-driven, story-based games than we’re having right now. We feel good about that, and it’s certainly not a genre of gaming we’ll ever walk away from. Service games, when done well, will continue to be popular and grow in popularity. But only as the overall gaming ecosystem grows, and more people are playing more and more games longer and longer.
Santa Monica StudioIt would of course be madness for Sony to walk away from its single player output, especially given that games like Spider-Man and God of War have done incredibly well both commercially and critically.
Just last month, it was revealed that God of War hit an impressive 10 million sales worldwide. That’s in addition to the game having picked up a ridiculous number of awards last year, including Game of the Year at The Game Awards.
It also doesn’t look like we’re quite done with ambitious single-player releases on PS4. Before the PS5 arrives, we’ll be getting at least three more AAA titles in the form of Death Stranding, Ghosts of Tsushima, and The Last of Us Part 2.
Naughty DogDeath Stranding is scheduled to release this November, while it looks like 2020 will see Ghosts of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part 2, and possibly the Final Fantasy VII remake close out the PS4’s impressive run with a bang.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.