Sony’s Shooter Roadmap: How the 2026 Live Service Plan Played Out
Sony's leaked live-service slate made Helldivers 2 a co-op hit, while Concord flopped and The Last of Us multiplayer was cancelled.
In late 2022, a quiet update on an artist’s ArtStation profile gave players an early look at Sony’s multiplayer plans. Frank Aliberti, a senior artist at PlayStation Studios Visual Arts, appeared to be tied to two unannounced shooter projects: a third-person cooperative shooter aimed for 2023 and a first-person shooter penciled in for 2024. For fans who had just watched God of War Ragnarök sweep awards and Horizon Forbidden West sell well, the news felt like another sign that PlayStation was ready to chase live-service trends.
According to Aliberti’s LinkedIn activity, Arrowhead Studios was handling the third-person co-op game while Firewalk Studios took on the first-person shooter. PlayStation never officially confirmed those windows at the time, but the timeline matched Sony’s stated plan to push out around ten live-service games by 2026.
Fast-forward to 2026, and the picture looks a little different. Sony’s old goal of shipping around ten live-service games has become something of a cautionary tale. Some of those leaked projects turned into major wins, while others, let’s be real, never found their footing.
| Leaked Project | Studio | What Happened by 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Third-person co-op shooter | Arrowhead Studios | Became Helldivers 2, launched February 2024, a huge co-op hit ✅ |
| First-person shooter | Firewalk Studios | Became Concord, launched August 2024, shut down within weeks ❌ |
| The Last of Us multiplayer spin-off | Naughty Dog | Cancelled in December 2023 ❌ |
| Fantasy live-service title | London Studio | Studio closed; project never shipped ❌ |
| New live-service IP | Bungie | Evolved into Marathon, still on the way 🎮 |
Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 is probably the brightest spot in this timeline. It matched the old leak almost perfectly: third-person, cooperative, shooter. It also blew up far beyond what many expected, proving that a focused co-op loop can still attract players without being a free-to-play treadmill.
Firewalk’s Concord was the opposite. It launched as a premium hero shooter in a market already crowded with free heavyweights, and players watched it vanish faster than a loadout swap. That outcome was a bit of a head-scratcher after years of Sony saying Bungie’s Destiny 2 expertise would help its studios avoid exactly this kind of mismatch.
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer project, the one fans had been asking about for years, was also cancelled. It was supposed to be a follow-up to the original Factions mode, but by late 2023 Naughty Dog confirmed it was stepping away to focus on single-player games. For many players, that news stung more than any failed shooter.
London Studio’s fantasy live-service title ended up as another casualty. The studio was closed in 2024, and the game never made it to a public release. That left Bungie’s new IP, now known as Marathon, as one of the remaining pieces of Sony’s old live-service puzzle. It has not shipped by early 2026, but it remains a closely watched project.
Bungie was always the wildcard in this plan. Sony acquired the studio in 2022, not just for Destiny 2, but for its knowledge of running live-service games. In practice, that knowledge did not translate into a guaranteed hit for every team. By 2026, Bungie has faced layoffs and slower development on its next project, which shows that even experienced live-service developers can struggle when the market shifts. That context makes Helldivers 2’s success feel even more like lightning in a bottle.
From an ordinary player’s perspective, the whole saga shows how unpredictable the live-service rush can be. A leak from an artist’s portfolio is just a snapshot, not a promise. Some games become Helldivers 2; others become Concord. By 2026, Sony’s approach seems more careful, with fewer announced live-service bets and a renewed focus on the single-player blockbusters that made PlayStation a household name.