During an interview on Kinda Funny Games, SCE Worldwide Studios North American head honcho Scott Rohde went into full tease mode about the upcoming projects by Sony Bend, Sucker Punch and Sony Santa Monica.
Rohde explained that he was at Sony Bend last week, and he’s really excited about the progress of their project. It’s really looking great. He loves it, and Shuhei Yoshida loves it as well, but the timing has to be right for an announcement.
Rohde also confirmed that the theories about Bend prototyping a game and them starting from scratch are true “for the most part,” mentioning that they tried a lot of different things, and it took a long time to settle on something that everyone at Sony is happy with, also because they are a small team, so it “takes a little bit longer to get a prototype to a point where we can start massaging it,” and that’s where they are right now.
He also mentioned that what he likes about Sony is that the company is willing to wait until a game is “baked properly.” According to Rohde, if you just decide that a project needs to be released in a specific time window and with a specific budget, it’s going to fail every time. Some times you even spend a decent amount of money on something, and then you decide that it’s not worth continuing. While the teams stress about it, they also appreciate the fact that they are given time to do something special.
Sony Bend is at that point in which the game is in a playable state and everyone is smiling, happy, and can’t wait for the executives like Rohde to go and see the next milestone.
According to Rohde, this is going to be Bend’s “shining moment.”
Moving on to Sucker Punch, they’re also in the earlier end of that process. Both Rohde and Shuhei Yoshida played their game and “it’s fun,” but it’s not a given that what they played at this early stage is exactly what the game is going to be.
Asked about the inFAMOUS franchise, Rohde mentioned that Sony is “never gonna retire an IP,” but he didn’t give any information on whether Sucker Punch is currently working on it.
Lastly, asked about what Sony Santa Monica is doing, Rohde smiled, and explained that that smile meant that he can’t wait to tell us about it, but it’s not yet time for that. Yet, he’s super-excited about the project.
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