It’s always strange seeing so much Zombies-related coverage in the news, but it’s been one of those weeks. Jason Blundell’s new studio, Dark Outlaw Games, has been shuttered by PlayStation after a year and some change. It’s the latest in a series of cost-cutting exercises by PlayStation following its failed live-service pivot, and it’s a huge bummer.
If you read Shutter Paw, Jason Blundell likely needs no introduction. He led the Call of Duty Zombies Team during the mode’s golden era and quickly built up a rapport with the community by being open about the development process while remaining cryptic about… pretty much everything else! His candour was something we’d never experienced before: a developer who spoke to players as players, rather than marks for money.
Following the news of Dark Outlaw’s closure, Blundell joined JCBackfire on his Twitch channel to discuss the state of affairs. Going live as they woke up in bandages, it was immediately clear both were down, but not out. Blundell defiantly stated, “I will carry on failing until I succeed”, joking that his next game might not be released until he’s in his eighties. It’s a refreshing change from the usual doom and gloom that comes with a studio shutdown. It’s still a regrettable situation, of course, but hearing the thoughts of the studio head and a level designer just one day removed from the news is transparency we rarely get.
Reflecting on Blundell’s interview with Jeff Gerstmann, where he first mentioned Dark Outlaw, it’s clear that climbing the ladder at Treyarch came at the cost of being further away from the games themselves. His comments also suggested that Call of Duty was changing in ways that no longer spoke to him. One has to wonder whether he foresaw Call of Duty’s Warzone obsession, which went on to homogenise and dilute other pillars of the franchise.
When the news first broke, some joked that Blundell had found an “infinite money glitch” by jumping from studio to studio. While the image of him as The Hamburgler escaping with a big bag of dosh does make me chuckle, the answer to the closure is much simpler: PlayStation killed Dark Outlaw Games in the crib.
The reality, as Blundell himself admitted, is that the video game industry is under immense pressure, leading to business decisions made regardless of a project’s quality. It’s likely that when he formed Dark Outlaw in late 2023, the climate wasn’t quite as tense. No one at PlayStation could have predicted that Concord would turn out to be such a catastrophic failure, and Bluepoint Studios was still quietly working away on its God of War live-service project. Only a few years later, PlayStation is still reeling from the millions of dollars it lost on Concord. Bluepoint’s project was cancelled, and as a result, the studio no longer exists.
PlayStation needed to save money, and the easiest cuts to make are the projects that aren’t a year or two away from release. That, unfortunately, made Dark Outlaw a target. The studio was at the incubation stage, which typically means building up an internal culture and nailing down a high-level project overview before scaling into production.
Dark Outlaw had only twenty-or-so employees when PlayStation made the call. Among them were several familiar faces if you’ve been following Zombies as long as I have: JCBackfire and Reed (RadAustin27). It’s inspiring to see them progress from making videos about Zombies to working on their own game, but it’s equally brutal watching the industry chew them up and spit them out so early on. I’m positive this isn’t the end of either of their journeys, though. JC himself mentioned the irony of his current predicament mirroring the cyclical nature of Black Ops 3 Zombies and how, through endurance, we can prosper.
Neither could come out and say it, but it’s obvious from the faces of both Jason and JC that the game Dark Outlaw was working on was heavily influenced by Blundell’s time working on Call of Duty Zombies. A focused, non-live-service game that prioritised story and gameplay over battlepasses and live events. Building a good game and then supporting it often feels like a lost recipe nowadays, which makes the decision to snuff out the studio all the more frustrating.
The two were consummate professionals throughout the stream, thanking PlayStation and respecting its decision. I don’t need to be so diplomatic: are the bean counters at PlayStation off their nut?! Dark Outlaw’s game may have been years out, but it almost certainly would have been more successful than a Concord, a Highguard, or a Fairgames (if that one even launches — remember it?).
The full stream VOD is up on JC’s YouTube, and it’s well worth the watch, Zombies fan or not. As someone fascinated by the work that goes on behind the curtain, it’s always a pleasure to listen to Blundell muse about the craft of game development. Hearing JC’s experience as a newcomer is just as influential.
On the same day as the Dark Outlaw news, Epic Games announced it was cutting 1000 jobs. Yes, Epic. The owners of Fortnite. CEO Tim Sweeney continues to embarrass himself on Twitter after slashing his workforce by over 20%. Perhaps, instead of laying people off and tweeting about it, he should’ve held off on Fortnite’s attempt to brute-force its way past Roblox. Not to mention his fascination with developing a Fortnite metaverse, or the costly lawsuit with Apple under the false pretence of consumer rights. I mean, the “industry’s vanguard” taking “bullets”? Gies peace.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Jason Blundell x JCBackfire stream without a trip down memory lane. There were a few highlights for Zombies fans:
- Blundell’s biggest Zombie regret was never getting to release an Atlantis map.
- The long-rumoured Year Two of Black Ops 4 seems to have existed.
- Discussion of the recently solved Revelations ciphers.
- Confirmation that the first Zombies map Blundell worked on was Der Riese. (Real ones knew this already, but it was nice to set the record straight.
- Further insight into World at War’s Paris map, which was originally planned as a fourth DLC map, and the origins of the Der Riese brick cipher.
Since both JC and Blundell are currently on the dole (hopefully not for too long), they teased future streams that may dive into more of the secrets of past Zombies games. It’s been so long that some of Blundell’s NDA’s have likely expired, so why let that knowledge go to waste?
And that’s what so many of these publishers don’t understand. It takes time — sometimes multiple games — to build a dedicated community that follows you through thick and thin. It also takes time and quite often, money, to craft something that stands the test of time. There is no shortcut to greatness.
It was a big news day for Zombies fans. Black Ops 7’s Season 3 reveal featured a Grief-esque FFA Battle mode (with private matches), the return of some fan-favourite weapons, and a glimpse of Totenreich, the next round-based map. Don’t take my praise of Blundell as a slight on Modern Zombies — there’s still a lot of cool things happening in the Dark Aether!
It’s difficult to predict what follows Dark Outlaw’s closure. Blundell’s CV speaks for itself, but funding has become difficult for any developer to secure — look no further than his own attempts post-Treyarch. He and JC pondered going independent, which would certainly avoid a corporation pulling the plug. Yet other financial models, like crowdfunding, may not be suitable for a game on the scale Blundell has in mind. There are plenty of options, though, be it episodic releases, Early Access, or a standalone paid prologue. I’m sure he’s doing his research. Hopefully we find out sooner rather than later, but given Blundell’s determination to get something into players’ hands, there’s no point in him talking about the future until things are set in stone. Whatever it is, there are plenty of people ready to turn up for it. I know I’ll be there day one, even if it’s an avant-garde paint drying simulator.
It’s impossible to know where Jason Blundell goes next, but his immediate future is clear, and it’s something we should all live by: pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and go again.
