The new game development studio Deviation Games has announced that it is working on a “ground-breaking” new IP. The studio is also partnering with PlayStation to launch its game and add to the roster of award-winning titles available on PlayStation.
Deviation Games is led by ex-Treyarch developers Dave Anthony and Jason Blundell, who played key roles working on the Call of Duty franchise, especially the highly successful Black Ops and Black Ops 2 titles. Anthony and Blundell revealed at their Summer Game Fest 2021 presentation that they had spent the last year building up their team of “Deviators” for the new studio.
Now the CEO and CCO of Deviation Games, Anthony and Blundell appeared on stage with Geoff Keighley to announce that the new studio is working on a new video game project at the moment. Anthony said the project has, “innovation at its very core,” with Blundell adding that the game will, “leave an indelible mark on the industry.”
Anthony and Blundell had nothing to show at Summer Game Fest 2021, and no information about the game was shared, leaving it up to speculation as to what this PlayStation-partnered IP could be. Speaking about the partnership, Anthony said that from “soup to nuts, this project is all about quality” and that he is proud to be expanding PlayStation’s portfolio of “hit after hit, award after award” games “in a very, very significant way”.
The studio was set up by the pair to deviate – hence the studio’s name – and break away from the long-established video game IPs that can have very tight creative constraints, Anthony said. Deviation Games is a studio where, “the best idea always wins.” He added: “From day one, we got complete financial security to work with creative freedom and time.”
This was much more of a food for thought announcement since literally nothing was shared about the kind of game Deviation Games is working on, leaving a lot up to speculation. Given Anthony and Blundell’s previous work, Deviation Games’ debut title could be a narrative-driven, shooter that rivals the campaigns of Call of Duty with exciting new mechanics. The studio’s partnership with PlayStation would also suggest that this title is almost certainly going to be a PlayStation exclusive, but given that the game is likely in its early stages of development, this new project will not launch for at least a couple of years.