Dark Outlaw Games is a LA-based developer that was publicly acknowledged in 2025. However, its history starts years before the recent announcement. Founded by Jason Blundell, who was co-studio head of Treyarch until 2020, he's best known for directing the Campaign and Zombies modes in Black Ops 3 and 4. Considering his pedigree on Call of Duty, which dates back to 2006's COD3, it's not surprising we'd see his new studio so quickly… Deviation Games.
At SGF 2021, he and fellow COD veteran David Anthony announced Deviation along with a Sony partnership to fund their first game - a new AAA IP inspired by their COD history. However, this was the last time we'd publicly hear from Deviation as they closed in March 2024.
It was never officially stated why Deviation closed. But whatever issues there were, it was bad enough for Sony to pull funding. Blundell also left much earlier in 2022 - reportedly to form a new studio as part of PS Studios, which we now know as Dark Outlaw. According to LinkedIn profiles, the studio has been operating since at least June 2023. Staffed up by a significant number of ex-Deviation employees.
Regardless of what really went wrong inside Deviation, Sony clearly believes Blundell wasn't the founder causing the issue. Especially as the other co-founder has been self-employed since Deviation closed. Now as Dark Outlaw, the studio is almost certainly creating the PS5 game Sony originally wanted Deviation to make. But this time, Sony owns the team and IP.
Little is known about Dark Outlaw's game because they've only been publicly mentioned once, in an interview primarily about Blundell's career history. The studio just got a brief mention, but it fortunately included relevant information.
Blundell stated that Dark Outlaw has been staffing up for a while, which makes sense considering he left Deviation in 2022. He's also slowly ramping up development while prioritizing getting the team to gel first, which allows the best ideas to naturally come to light. Considering the history however, I speculate that much of the final game will still closely resemble the original Deviation project. Which in turn likely took inspiration from Black Ops 3 and 4. Finally, while it's a live-service game, there's reasons for optimism compared to most of Sony's live-service push.
Based on Blundell's comments, the game is still years away. This is an advantageous position as Sony can analyze any mistakes made with upcoming live-service games like Fairgames/Marathon and (hopefully) not repeat them. Blundell also has time to reflect on mistakes made at Deviation and ensure they aren't repeated at Dark Outlaw.
Blundell's co-op-focused career with COD Zombies also compares favorably to the competitive-focused games just mentioned. Helldivers 2's adamance on no PvP was a big reason why it's the one Sony live-service game that succeeded, so the more he leans into the co-op blueprint, the stronger the chance his new game has to succeed.
Genre: Online FPS
Release Date: Unreleased
Days Since Their Last Game: N/A
Metacritic Score: N/A