Gameplay footage from Project Draconis, the cancelled Sony-backed shooter from Deviation Games, hit the internet on December 6, 2025, courtesy of leaker Dusk Golem (also known as AestheticGamer). The ten-minute clip shows a third-person co-op action game that some are calling Sony’s answer to Gears of War, complete with cover-based shooting, alien enemies that looked like living ooze, and a gritty military aesthetic. The project never saw the light of day after Sony pulled funding and Deviation Games shut down in March 2024 without releasing a single game.
What Happened to Deviation Games
Deviation Games was founded in 2020 by Jason Blundell and Dave Anthony, two high-profile developers from Treyarch who worked on Call of Duty: Black Ops and created the iconic Zombies mode. Sony signed a partnership deal with the studio just one year into its existence in 2021, agreeing to fund development of a new AAA original IP for PlayStation. The relationship seemed promising until everything fell apart within two years.
Jason Blundell, one of the co-founders, left Deviation Games in September 2022 with no public explanation. His departure was a massive blow since he was considered the creative visionary behind the studio’s pitch to Sony. By May 2023, Deviation underwent layoffs. Then in March 2024, the studio announced its complete closure. COO Kriste Stull posted on LinkedIn expressing gratitude to the team but offering no specific details about what went wrong or what the game actually was.
Why Sony Pulled the Plug
According to former Deviation Games Design Director Chris Castle, who spoke to media outlets in November 2025, Sony pulled funding primarily due to external financial factors rather than problems with the game itself. Sony lost $10 billion in stock value in early 2024, partly because of a PlayStation 5 sales forecast cut. The company was simultaneously cutting 900 jobs across its first-party studios and cancelling multiple live-service projects including Concord, which infamously shut down days after launch.
After Sony withdrew funding, Deviation tried shopping the game to other potential investors and publishers. Nobody bit. The problem was that any company acquiring Deviation would inherit the residual complications of the existing Sony partnership agreement. The studio even pitched a completely new game concept, but couldn’t find anyone willing to invest the year to year-and-a-half of development funding required. Castle was clear that Sony treated Deviation well despite the circumstances, but the economic realities of 2024’s gaming industry bloodbath sealed the studio’s fate.
What Project Draconis Actually Was
Dusk Golem nicknamed the game “Ooze” during development to obscure its actual title, a reference to the enemy designs featuring gelatinous alien creatures. The leaked footage shows third-person shooter gameplay with multiple player characters fighting waves of these blob-like enemies in industrial environments. The aesthetic and mechanics clearly draw inspiration from Gears of War, with characters taking cover behind objects, coordinating team-based tactics, and unloading heavy weaponry into grotesque creatures.
Dusk Golem stated he has about an hour of total footage but chose to release only ten minutes after confirming the project is completely dead and won’t be resurrected in any form. He also confirmed he checked with people who might be affected by the leak to ensure it wouldn’t spoil anything related to current projects before posting publicly. The footage quality suggests it came from an internal development build rather than a polished vertical slice meant for marketing.
The Jason Blundell Connection
| Event | Date | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Deviation Games Founded | March 2020 | Blundell and Anthony leave Treyarch |
| Sony Partnership Announced | 2021 | AAA original IP deal signed |
| Blundell Leaves Deviation | September 2022 | Co-founder departure shakes studio |
| First Round of Layoffs | May 2023 | Financial trouble becomes visible |
| Deviation Shuts Down | March 2024 | Complete studio closure |
| Dark Outlaw Games Announced | March 2025 | Blundell’s new Sony first-party studio |
The timeline gets more interesting when you consider what happened to Jason Blundell after leaving Deviation. In March 2025, Sony announced the formation of Dark Outlaw Games, a brand new first-party studio within PlayStation Studios led by none other than Jason Blundell himself. He confirmed the studio’s existence on journalist Jeff Gerstmann’s podcast, saying he’d been “working away in the shadows for a while” on an unannounced project.
This raises obvious questions. Did Sony hire Blundell away from Deviation, effectively gutting the studio of its key creative leader? Multiple Reddit comments on the leaked footage suggest exactly that narrative. One user stated Sony wanted to work with Blundell specifically, not Deviation as a whole, so they hired him and other key staff members to start Dark Outlaw while pulling funding from the original project. If true, that would explain why losing Blundell was the fatal blow Deviation never recovered from.
Sony’s Cancelled Games Problem
Project Draconis joins a growing list of cancelled PlayStation projects from 2023-2024. The culling includes Concord (shut down after two weeks), Bungie’s Destiny spinoff codenamed Payback, a Twisted Metal live-service game from Firesprite, an unknown fantasy game from London Studio (which was shuttered entirely), Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Great Web, and projects from the now-closed Neon Koi studio. Reports suggest Sony cancelled over ten live-service games in just three years as the company dramatically scaled back its live-service ambitions after multiple failures.
The industry-wide context matters here. Every major publisher cut projects and staff throughout 2024. Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks (later revived by Krafton), and Alpha Dog Studios. Warner Bros. cancelled multiple games and shut down several live-service titles. Embracer Group closed or sold numerous studios as part of its restructuring. Gaming’s post-pandemic boom turned into a brutal correction phase where anything not guaranteed to be profitable got axed.
FAQs
What was Project Draconis?
Project Draconis was a third-person co-op shooter being developed by Deviation Games with Sony funding. The game featured cover-based shooting mechanics similar to Gears of War, with players fighting alien creatures described as looking like living ooze. The project was cancelled when Sony pulled funding in late 2023 or early 2024, leading to Deviation’s shutdown in March 2024.
Why did Deviation Games shut down?
Sony withdrew funding from Project Draconis due to financial pressures in 2024, including PlayStation 5 sales forecast cuts and stock value losses. After losing Sony’s backing, Deviation couldn’t find another publisher willing to fund the project or invest in a new game concept. The studio officially closed in March 2024 without releasing any games.
Where is Jason Blundell now?
Jason Blundell left Deviation Games in September 2022 and later joined Sony to establish Dark Outlaw Games, a new first-party PlayStation studio announced in March 2025. He’s currently leading the studio on an unannounced project, though no details about what they’re working on have been revealed yet.
Did Sony poach Jason Blundell from Deviation?
While never officially confirmed, the timeline strongly suggests Sony hired Blundell away from Deviation after the partnership began. His departure in September 2022 preceded Sony pulling funding and the studio’s eventual collapse. Sony then announced Dark Outlaw Games with Blundell as creative lead in March 2025, indicating the relationship continued separately from Deviation.
Who leaked the Project Draconis footage?
The footage was released by Dusk Golem (also known as AestheticGamer), a leaker known for sharing information about horror games and cancelled projects. He stated he has about an hour of footage total but only released ten minutes after confirming the project was completely dead and wouldn’t be revived in any form.
Could Project Draconis be revived at Dark Outlaw Games?
According to Dusk Golem, he checked with relevant parties before releasing the footage to ensure it wouldn’t spoil anything about current projects. While some concepts or ideas might carry over to whatever Dark Outlaw is developing, Project Draconis as shown in the leaked footage is confirmed to be permanently cancelled with no plans for resurrection.
Was Project Draconis supposed to be a live-service game?
The leaked footage doesn’t clearly indicate whether Project Draconis was designed as a traditional single-player/co-op experience or a live-service title. Given Sony’s 2021-2023 push for live-service games and the co-op focus, it’s possible the game had live-service elements, but nothing in the available information confirms this definitively.
How many people lost their jobs when Deviation closed?
Deviation Games underwent layoffs in May 2023 before completely shutting down in March 2024. The exact number of employees affected hasn’t been publicly disclosed, but the studio had been hiring aggressively after its 2020 founding and 2021 Sony partnership announcement, suggesting dozens of developers lost their positions across the two rounds of cuts.
The Bigger Lesson
Deviation Games represents everything risky about the modern AAA game development model. Two talented veterans with incredible resumes founded a studio, immediately landed a major publishing deal, and still couldn’t ship a game before collapsing. The project took roughly three to four years from the 2021 Sony deal announcement to the 2024 shutdown, burning through what was likely tens of millions of dollars without producing a releasable product.
Starting a new studio is exponentially harder than it looks, even with industry legends at the helm. You need the right team chemistry, solid project management, sufficient funding, realistic scope, and frankly a lot of luck with timing. Deviation hit bad timing when Sony’s financial situation deteriorated and the company started mass-cancelling projects. Losing Blundell so early in development probably doomed the project even before Sony pulled the plug. The leaked footage shows a competent-looking shooter, but competent isn’t enough when budgets run into nine figures and publishers need guaranteed hits to justify the investment.