God of War developer Sony Santa Monica spent $25 million creating a new IP that was sadly cancelled years down the road. Luckily, this isn't one of those cases where a game is taken away due to wider studio concerns, but instead it seems it was the developers' own decision not to pursue the project any further.
On the My Perfect Console podcast (via GamesRadar), former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida told the story of the game and how it seemed exciting at first but lead to some troubles down the line. "It had a really amazing concept, and really interesting gameplay ideas. Of course, Santa Monica Studio people are very, very capable of creating high-quality art. So we supported [them for] many years, but after $25 million, they came to me and said that we have to stop. I do not exactly remember the reason for it. The team was not able to find 'the game.' It was a great concept. Great idea. But the gameplay didn't really come to be," Yoshida described.
Yoshida also said that cancelling games was something he did fairly often. "I cancelled so many games," he described. "No one knows most of the games, because we canceled early enough. We tried to try a new idea, do the prototype, and if it's good, continue. If it's not good, rework or stop. So early cancellation doesn't cost us much. However, if the game was kind of making progress, and very promising vision went on and on, after $25 million it was a really hard decision. But I think in that case, Santa Monica Studio by themselves, was like, 'probably we have to stop.'"
We rarely know what's going on behind the scenes, but if we thought about every missed gaming opportunity, we'd probably never sleep again. At least Sony Santa Monica has continued to deliver great games in the God of War series, even if this new IP didn't work out.