Two new pieces of concept art from a canceled PlayStation live-service project have emerged online. The studio developing this game was none other than London Studio, a PlayStation first-party team that was shuttered by Sony earlier this year.

London Studio was one of PlayStation's oldest teams, with its inception dating all the way back to 2002. Aside from supporting development of other PlayStation first-party games, London Studio was renowned for novel experiences that experimented with PlayStation hardware in different ways, such as Singstar, PlayStation Home, PlayStation VR Worlds, Eye Toy, and many more. Unfortunately, London Studio was shut down in February 2024.

Before it was closed, London Studio was developing a live-service PS5 game that reportedly featured co-op gameplay and was set in a fantasy rendition of London. Some concept art of London Studio's unannounced game was officially released in 2022, but nothing else was published beyond that one image, and the project ultimately got canceled when the studio was shuttered. Now, two new pieces of concept art for this mysterious live-service game have been discovered on former London Studio artist Léa Pinto's ArtStation profile.

Pinto doesn't explicitly state that the concept art is from London Studio's co-op game, mentioning instead that they were created in 2023 for a now-canceled project. When compared to the official 2022 concept art, however, the identical art style and visual identity make it very evident that these were indeed for London Studio's live-service game. Moreover, these concept art pieces clearly depict the streets of London, and the clever wordplay involving fairies, orcs, and elves on the store signs hammers the fantasy point home even further.

It must also be said that if Pinto's concept art is anything to go by, London Studio's PS5 game clearly had a strong and distinctive art style. The nighttime neon iterations look especially striking, somewhat echoing Blade Runner 2049's color palette. It's unfortunate that London Studio's game and its remarkable visual identity won't see the light of day, especially after the criticisms surrounding Concord's character designs proved how essential art styles are to a live-service game's success.

Sony never provided an exact reason for shuttering London Studio, but the running theory is that the gaming giant is easing down on the ambitious live-service plans it set in motion a few years ago. Firesprite's rumored Twisted Metal live-service project was also canceled alongside London Studio's shutdown, and even Naughty Dog binned its long-awaited The Last of Us Online game late last year, lending a lot of credence to the theory.

Posted: Oct 30, 2024 4:40 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/canceled-playstation-ps5-game-london-studio-concept-art-rumor/